CAPSTONE MINING: DOUBLES COZAMIN COPPER MINE LIFE IN MEXICO / 3 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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Minaurum shows size potential at Alamos SITE VISIT
| Junior hunts for silver and gold in Mexico’s Sierra Madre
Steppe Gold nears production at ATO GOLD-SILVER
| First bullion from heap-leach mine expected in Q2 2019 BY TRISH SAYWELL tsaywell@northernminer.com
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ince Steppe Gold (TSX: STGO) bought Altan Tsagaan Ovoo (ATO) from Centerra Gold (TSX: CG) for $19.8 million in January 2017, the junior has made steady progress de-risking and building the heap-leach, gold-silver mine in eastern Mongolia. Seven months after the acquisition last year, the company teed-up a US$23-million gold and silver stream agreement with Triple Flag Mining Financing, and raised US$25 million in an initial public offering in May 2018 (with 12.5 million shares at $2 per share).
Minaurum Gold VP of exploration Stephen Maynard (far left) examines freshly drilled core on the company’s Alamos silver project in Mexico. PHOTO BY RICHARD QUARISA BY RICHARD QUARISA rquarisa@northernminer.com ALAMOS, MEXICO
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hanks to a late rain, it’s unusually green on the Sierra de Alamos as we drive onto Minaurum Gold’s (TSXV: MGG; US-OTC: MMRGF) Alamos silver property in late November 2018. We enter via the small town of La Aduana — an old mining town, where the Spanish settled when they came to the region in the 1600s. The Alamos project is in the southern part of Mexico’s Sonora State. Minaurum optioned it in 2016 for cash payments totalling $600,000, 6 million shares and $3 million in work expenses. The company has since quadrupled the
project to 164.4 sq. km and amassed 14 vein systems ranging from 500 metres to 2.5 km in length. It aims to make at least a couple more big hits: vein discoveries that are wide, high grade and far apart. When the company began exploring the property, it knew of several veins hosting the historic Promontorio, Minas Nuevas and La Quintera mines, where, between 1680 and 1930, various miners produced more than 150 million oz. silver. “They probably produced a larger amount,” Minaurum vice-president of exploration Stephen Maynard says during a site visit hosted by the company. “But that’s the minimum.” The La Quintera Mining Co. mined Quintera-Promontorio in
the late 1800s and early 1900s, moving ore via a tram system down to La Aduana for smelting. It closed its mine in 1907 after the silver price collapsed. The area saw minor production afterwards. “The reason it wasn’t mined more recently is the mining claims were fragmented and hard to consolidate,” Maynard says. “The family who optioned it to Minaurum was able to do that consolidation.” Promontorio has a strike length of 800 metres. The company has drilled it to a depth of 200 metres. It remains open along strike to the south and at depth. Minaurum tested it with two holes in 2017. Those cut 154.1 grams silver per tonne, 0.2 gram gold per tonne gold, 0.5% copper, 2.3% lead and 6.8% zinc over 20 metres from
82 metres downhole, and 81 grams silver, 0.1 gram gold, 0.14% copper, 3.23% lead and 2.72% zinc over 8.5 metres from 124 metres downhole. “This is not what’s going to make us, but it’s worth looking at, because it’s instructive,” Maynard says. “This is not where the glory is for us, but I’m not saying forget about it. This is part of the inventory.” Minaurum president and CEO Darrell Rader adds that “in this market, you get taken over for new, high-grade discoveries, so that’s what we’re looking for. At Promontorio we planned to drill through the historic vein in order to test new targets to the east. We lost both holes after discovering a new vein in the hangingwall.”
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