PROJECT OVERVIEW:
The Ixtaca Zone is an epithermal gold-silver target in the southwest portion of the 100% Almaden owned Tuligtic Project in Puebla State, Mexico.
Lying within the Trans Mexican Volcanic Belt, the 14,000 hectare Tuligtic Project is 95km north of Puebla city, 150km east of Mexico City, and 120km southeast of the Pachuca Gold-Silver Deposit with reported historic production of 1.4 billion ounces of silver and 7 million ounces of gold.
Tuligtic was identified and acquired by Almaden during the company’s 2001 regional exploration program. Within this area, subsequent Almaden field work identified a 5 hectare area of intensely altered rocks that contains several prospective targets including the Ixtaca Zone.
In August 2010, Almaden reported assay results from first hole ever drilled in the Ixtaca zone. TU-10-01 intersected 302 metres of 1 g/t gold and 48g/t silver and multiple high grade intervals including 1.67 metres of 60.7g/t gold and 2122g/t silver.
Following Discovery Hole TU-10-01, 247 holes were drilled in the Ixtaca Zone between 2010 and 2012. Drilling traced mineralization over one kilometer in a northeasterly orientation and showed the Main Ixtaca Zone to be a broad and robust vein system intersected by multiple high grade veinlets in a variety of orientations. Drilling has also identified two additional zones: the Ixtaca North Zone and the Northeast Extension.
In January 2013, Almaden announced the Maiden Resource Estimate and Preliminary Metallurgy for the project. Read the news release here +
Almden has invested in the Tuligtic area since 2001. Currently we have over 70 local people working with Almaden in our ongoing exploration program. On behalf of our shareholders we invest in ongoing training employee training programs and are actively involved in the community's health and social welfare projects. To date, we have helped with local construction and improvement projects including work on a school, public bathrooms, a community hall, a local church and a hospital. (See our blog for more information.) Almaden is proud to be working in Puebla and to be building long term relationships in the communities near the Ixtaca project. |
"The Ixtaca deposit continues to grow with four drills at work on the project. We extremely pleased with our Maiden Resource Estimate, announced in January 2013. We look forward to an exciting drill program as we continue to expand the resource."
Morgan Poliquin, President & CEO of Almaden Minerals |
GEOLOGY: epithermal gold-silver
 The Ixtaca zone occurs in deformed carbonate rocks about two kilometres southwest of the Tuligtic's porphyry copper zone (drilled in 2009-2010). Surface manifestation of the Ixtaca zone is very obscure because the region is almost completely covered with volcanic ash. Reports of historic clay mines brought Almaden’s attention to the area.
The epithermal gold-silver target area is characterised by extensively clay altered and silicified volcanic rocks. The alteration is indicative of the upper parts of an epithermal system and includes replacement silicification and sinter, the precipitate or sediment that was deposited from a hot spring. Quartz-calcite veins with textural evidence of boiling have been identified outcropping in limestone roughly 100 meters beneath the exposed sinter.
Initial sampling of these veins and from float boulders of breccia containing quartz vein fragments returned anomalous values in gold and silver as high as 600 g/t silver and 6.1 g/t gold. The sinter and the overlying altered volcanic rocks are highly anomalous in mercury and arsenic.
The Ixtaca's kaolinite and replacement silica alteration zones are typical of the surface manifestation of an ancient hotspring environment. Within the feeder faults which channel hot mineral solutions from depth to surface hotsprings, quartz, carbonate, gold and silver can deposit. This was the model employed by Almaden in testing the Ixtaca Zone where, in an arroyo beneath the kaolinite and silica alteration, some very narrow (0.1 to 3 centimetre) veins with epithermal textures occur in a small (about 2 metres by 5 metres) outcrop. These veins assayed up to 1 g/t gold and 110 g/t silver. Small cobbles of float in the creek returned assays of up to 600 g/t silver and another such cobble assayed 6.0 g/t gold. Work prior to drilling included a single Induced Polarization geophysical line across this area which detected a resistivity anomaly and several short geochemical soil sample lines showed coincident anomalous gold and silver values. |
