Marifil Mines Ltd. has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire the Dos Lagunas and the Maquinchao gold projects from a private party. The properties total 2,221 hectares and both properties are located in Rio Negro Province, Argentina.
Both properties are covered under a single agreement. The terms of the contract call for payments of $10,000 on signing (paid) and escalating payments over five years totaling $125,000 followed by a final payment of $1,000,000 to earn a 100% interest in the properties. The owner retains a 2% Net Smelter Return but the Company can purchase this royalty for $1,000,000.
Dos Lagunas
The Dos Lagunas property is located about 15 kilometers southeast of the town of Los Menucos, a small mining town located on a major paved highway and railroad. The property comprises 72 hectares and covers a 1,700 meter long gold-bearing epithermal vein. Prior owners explored the vein by excavating 45 trenches totalling 2,400 meters and by drilling 18 core and rotary drill holes totalling 2,009.15 meters.
Maquinchao
The village of Maquinchao is located 71 kilometers southwest of Los Menucos and is also served by the same paved highway and railroad as Los Menucos. The project is located about four kilometers southeast of Maquinchao.
The project is covered by two cateos (claims) totaling 2,149 hectares.
Mineralization comprises a gold-bearing hydrothermal breccia zone approximately 1,200 meters long, up to 150 meters wide, and striking northeast. This zone is a pyroclastic and hydrothermal breccia zone containing silica, vuggy silica, and various clay alteration products. Chip samples ranging up to 30.8 grams per tonne gold are present along with anomalous amounts of tellurium, antimony, and arsenic.
About 200 meters to the southeast is a second gold-bearing silica cap having a somewhat triangular shape measuring about 550 meters in an east-west direction and about 300 meters in a north-south direction. This zone comprises pyroclastic rocks with pervasive opal and chalcedony replacements. Gold values are weakly anomalous.
Pegasus Gold Corp. apparently drilled four widely spaced drill holes on the property in the 1990s but no data is available.
Mr. Richard Walters, Marifil's Executive Vice President recently visited both properties and highly recommend their acquisition. He notes that a copper showing is present and that prior assaying probably did not test for indium, a valuable mineral found in several of the Company's other projects located in this same geologic environment.
Mr. John Hite, Marifil's President comments, "We view these two gold properties as complementary additions to our gold and silver projects along the northern border of the Somuncura Massif. The Somuncura Massif is a large pile of Jurassic volcanic rocks and the margins of the Massif are highly prospective area for gold and silver. Major gold and silver deposits located along the margins include the giant Navidad silver depost, the Calcatreu gold-silver vein and the