Option Agreement with Consolidated Spire Ventures
February 2007: Spire can earn a 60% interest from Almaden by spending US$3.5 M and by issuing Almaden 800,000 shares of Spire to Almaden over 5 years. Spire is committed to spend a minimum of US$250,000 in the first year and to issue 100,000 shares of Spire to Almaden upon regulatory approval of the agreement.
overview | geology | maps | past work
The
Yago/La Sarda project is located in the state of Nayarit near
the Pacific Coast of Mexico, seven kilometres from highway 15
which is one of the major thoroughfares from the United States
to Mexico City.
Almaden has focussed La Sarda area, which is in the most northern
part of the property. The area has four
parallel quartz-adularia veins in altered volcanic rocks that
underwent exploration and mining development in the 1990's by
a small Mexican concern. Almaden acquired a 100% interest
in the claims covering the area of these veins in 2000.
Although
there has been production from all four veins, most production
came from the La Sarda-San Juan vein system.
The Yago
project covers an area of extensive epithermal quartz-adularia veining.
Many of the veins have had historic production of bonanza grades.
In the La Sarda area of the property, production was underway
in shallow workings on four separate veins until February 2000.
On the La Sarda
vein, workings extended to depths of roughly 80 metres
below surface. On the bottom levels, veining coalesces
into wider, stronger vein structures (one and a half to about
two metres wide) and grades become more consistent. Fluid inclusion
analysis of vein material from the lower mine workings indicated
formation temperatures around 140% Celsius, an indication that
these workings are still high in the vein system which indicates
potential for grades to continue to depth. Surface sampling and
inspection of the limited workings on the other three known veins
indicates that these also have the potential to host high-grade
ore-shoots, similar to those mined on La Sarda vein.
The banded
quartz-adularia veins and stockwork veined country rocks bears
many similarities to the Sleeperdeposit in Nevada, McLaughlin
in California, the Hishikari deposit in Japan, as well as Golden
Cross and Martha Hill in New Zealand, all of which were or are
significant gold producers. The recent discoveries of two deposits
of this class, the El Penon deposit in Chile and the Midas deposit
in Nevada, were made by drilling veins exposed in shallowly eroded
hydrothermal alteration systems. There has been no exploration
by drilling or other means beyond the lowest workings and Almaden considers the depth potential and bonanza grades already
encountered on these vein merits a thorough drill test.
