The El Pulpo property is located
north-east of Mazatlan and covers an area of approximately 200
square kilometres. Almaden Minerals Ltd. (Almaden) has optioned
this property to Ross River Minerals Ltd. (Ross River) who can
earn a 60% interest by spending US$3,000,000 and issuing 425,000
shares to Almaden. Almaden and Ross River have identified high
grade porphyry related gold, silver and copper mineralisation
over a surface area in excess of 12 square kilometres. The property
hosts at least two copper-gold porphyry targets and three high
grade gold vein targets. Ross River has provided the company
with the following results in the form of a news release, an
excerpt from which follows:
Papaya Target:
Inversion analysis and geophysical
interpretation has identified four structures trending in a northwest/southeast
direction on the Papaya grid. The first 800 metres long is open
to the southeast, the second 3,500 metres long is open to the
north and southeast, the third 700 metres long is open to the
northwest and the fourth 2,100 metres long is open to the northwest
and southeast. Resistivity depth slicing at 100 metres shows,
as expected, resistivity anomalies associated with the northwest/southeast
trending chargeability anomalies and at surface are shown to
be correlative with known mineralization of up to 144.35 g/t
gold. Three of the anomalies, including the main Papaya vein
zone, are associated with anomalous gold, silver, copper, tellurium
and bismuth identified in soil geochemistry. In addition, a large
chargeability anomaly (7 - 18 mV/V) occurs at the southeast corner
of the grid over an east/west distance of 900 metres and is open
to the south and east. Geophysical surveying in progress on the
La Langosta grid will better define this anomaly.
La Trucha Target:
Three chargeability anomalies
have been identified on the La Trucha target. The first 700 metres
long by 500 metres wide, trending northeast to southwest, disappears
under Quaternary overburden cover. The second anomaly 500 metres
long by 400 metres wide is located immediately to the south.
The third anomaly extending to the Papaya grid immediately adjacent
to the west trends in a northwest southeast direction over 1100
metres in length and 300 metres in width and plunges under a
ridge capped by volcanic rocks to the southeast. All three chargeability
anomalies are associated with co-incident resistivity anomalies
and known outcrops of quartz tourmaline veining with values up
to 39.81 g/t gold, 1,614.2 g/t silver and 2.6% copper. As anticipated,
due to the thick overburden the soil geochemistry was of limited
use, however, where known outcrops of gold, silver and copper
occur, spot anomalies of gold, silver, copper, tellurium and
bismuth were reported. The extent of the geophysical anomalies
on the La Trucha, particularly over known mineralization with
values averaging 8.64 g/t gold, 357.6 g/t silver and 1.12% copper,
indicate the target at depth appears to be much larger than originally
anticipated.
La Langosta Target (including
El Bagre):
The I.P. and soil geochemistry
surveys have been completed on the La Langosta grid. The surveys
show an elliptical chargeability anomaly ring extending in a
northeast/southwest direction over 2,100 metres and 1,000 metres
in a northwest/southeast direction. The width of the ring ranges
from 150 - 300 metres. The chargeability ranges from 10 - 54
mV/V. This anomaly is coincident with porphyry style mineralization
within the La Langosta target. Follow-up work within this high
chargeability zone has discovered two new outcrops, the first
30 metres by 20 metres in size, 500 metres south of El Bagre
within intrusive rock containing disseminated chalcopyrite plus
copper oxides. A second outcrop 200 metres to the west and 20
metres wide of strongly potassically altered quartz monzonite
with sheeted quartz tourmaline veins containing disseminated
pyrite and chalcopyrite. Additional I.P. lines are being cut
to the east as the chargeability anomaly is open in that direction.
Cerro Colorado Target:
The I.P. geophysical survey
has just commenced on the Cerro Colorado grid. Soil geochemistry
has outlined two large zones anomalous in gold, silver and copper.
The largest of these is also anomalous in bismuth and tellurium.
The largest zone extends in a northeast/southwest direction and
is coincident with known gold, silver and copper mineralization
and is 200 - 300 metres in width and at least 1,700 metres long
and is open along strike at both ends. Additional soil lines
are being cut. The second anomaly is new and is 100 - 250 metres
in width and 1,100 metres long in a northwest/southeast direction.
Anomalous soil values have
been set for the above areas at greater than 100ppb gold, 2,600ppb
silver, 600ppm copper, 25ppm bismuth and 0.04ppm tellurium.
La Cetolla:
Six trenches up to 2 metres
deep and between 8 and 20 metres in length were dug by hand over
900 metres in an east west direction. Five of the trenches exposed
disseminated and stockwork copper mineralization consisting of
chalcopyrite and copper oxides. Assays are pending.
In addition, a new area of
stockwork copper mineralization has been discovered 2.2 kilometres
southeast of the La Cetolla porphyry copper-gold target. Exploration
work is continuing in this area.
Ross River is extremely encouraged
by the results to date from the exploration program. The on-going
program continues to define larger targets and discover new mineralized
zones. Trenching is presently underway on the Papaya and La Trucha
targets and drilling as previously announced will follow shortly
thereafter.
Work on the Papaya and La
Trucha targets was supervised by Peter Fischl, PGeo, La Langosta
and La Cetolla targets by Victor Jaramillo, MSc, PGeo and the
Cerro Colorado target by Alastair Findlay MSc, PGeo.
The quote above from a Ross
River news release refers to the unit of measurement "mV/V".
This is the geophysical unit of measurement for chargeability,
or the overvoltage induced in the geophysical survey. Chargeability
is a function of the metallic mineral content of the area surveyed.
Almaden believes these results to be very encouraging and are
representative of a large gold bearing intrusive hosted vein
system.
Almaden currently has thirteen
active joint ventures on sixteen properties. This includes eight
joint venture deals in which other companies are earning an interest
in the Almaden projects by spending, and a regional exploration
program with partner BHP Billiton underway to explore for copper-gold
deposits in Mexico. In addition, Almaden is continuing its aggressive
exploration efforts in Mexico and Canada.
