Mar 6 2019
Itronics Inc., an “Innovative Zero Waste” technology company that manufactures GOLD’n GRO fertilizers, and silver products, recently announced that its subsidiary Whitney & Whitney, Inc. has identified solid evidence for a Tertiary polymetallic low sulfidation gold system at the Auric Gold & Minerals, Inc. Fulstone Gold Silver Zinc Copper exploration project in the Yerington Mining District in northwestern Nevada.
The recently identified mineralization is in a valley which is being christened “The Golden Valley Prospect”. The Golden Valley Prospect samples are showing robust gold mineralization accompanied by anomalous silver, copper, and zinc. There is a zone of anomalous silver, gold, and zinc mineralization about 1,000 feet to the north of Golden Valley that is around 1,000 feet by 600 feet in area and a zone of intensely bleached and altered rock about 500 feet east of Golden Valley that is about 1,000 feet by 2,000 feet in area. These two zones are said to be related to the newly discovered mineralization in Golden Valley and are possibly all part of the freshly identified mineralization as defined below.
The Golden Valley Prospect is the third gold occurrence to be recognized in the Buckskin Range and is the second surface occurrence. The first is a high-grade gold-copper surface vein system, discovered in the early 1900s, at the Buckskin Mine roughly six miles to the south. The second is a deep high-grade copper-gold system around 3 miles to the south that was discovered by Anaconda Copper in the early 1970s, but that was not advanced.
Field analysis of a Landsat color anomaly in Golden Valley on which a considerably anomalous gold-in-soil sample was taken exposed an intensely clay-altered and heavily limonite-stained intrusive andesite porphyry subcrop—possibly a leached cap, which is so strongly jointed as to appear shattered—next to weakly-stained calc-siltstone. A part of this color anomaly was examined with two traverses of soil-plus-rock samples. The traverses were made up of 50 foot spaced samples on a 350-foot long Northeast-Southwesterly line, and on a 400-foot long Northwesterly-Southeasterly line, including rock/soil sampling, in the fall of 2018.
Multi-element analyses of 17 follow-up soil, as well as rock Golden Valley samples, specify that all “grab” samples of the andesite porphyry leached cap and calc-siltstone are anomalous geochemically in gold, silver, copper, zinc, and gold-pathfinder/indicator elements, and potassic clay alteration. All samples revealed ppm-detectable gold with two neighboring samples on altered porphyry displaying 14.05 ppm and 0.15 ppm gold. An extra 14 altered porphyry samples and one siltstone sample assayed from 0.006 ppm to 0.058 ppm gold and averaged 0.022 ppm gold. Besides the gold assays, average values for numerous gold pathfinder elements specify an epithermal, low-sulfidation, polymetallic gold system.
The total size of the Golden Valley Prospect is still to be measured, but directly to the east of the valley is a seriticized zone of andesite porphyry dikes and plugs that is about 1,000 feet by 2,000 feet in surface area which may be an extension of the Golden Valley mineralization. Another zone of analogous surface mineralization in calcareous siltstones and limestones is situated around 1,000 feet north of the Golden Valley Prospect. This area which has been recon sampled, but not yet grid-sampled is categorized by anomalous ppm levels of gold and is accompanied by unusually high zinc and silver values. Based on geophysical examination—both aeromag, and induced polarization—all three of these potential areas are possibly underlain by an intrusive polymetallic mineralizing source. According to geological interpretation, the mineralization is said to be of Tertiary geologic age.
The blend of positive geochemistry, geophysics, and geology indicators is such that the Golden Valley Prospect and its related mineralized zones are a feasible target for drilling to compute the scope and content of mineralization in the underlying rocks. There is a high likelihood that drilling will measure out a large size of rock comprising gold, zinc, silver, and copper at this area.
The Yerington Mining District hosts numerous multi-hundred million-ton copper deposits, and is promising for discovery of more large deposits. The Fulstone Project is one of the more potential areas in the district that is still to be drilled. As a Tertiary polymetallic low sulfidation gold system, it offers the prospect for the discovery of near-surface zinc, gold, silver, and copper which is fairly different and could be a lot more valuable than other projections in the district, which are typically enriched in copper.