Atacama Pacific Gold has announced additional assay results from the Phase III drilling campaign, which is ongoing at its Cerro Maricunga Oxide Gold Project situated 140 km NE of Copiapo, Chile. Drilling results from the Lynx Zone comprise 100 m grading 1.78 g/t gold, including a higher grade interval of 30 m of 3.26 g/t gold.
A new trend of gold mineralization was discovered along the main deposit’s northeast side. Additionally, within the Lynx Zone, a higher grade oxide mineralization was encountered.
On the southern Crux Zone, definition drilling is getting completed, wherein most of the drilling concentrated on delineating the oxide mineralization contact. The Crux Zone resource is being revised and will be included in the forthcoming economic assessment plan which will be released in Q2 of 2012.
CMD-126 drill hole intersected 100 m grading 1.78 g/t gold. This hole extended a higher grade gold mineralization zone beyond 50 m NW of CMD-111 drill hole which returned 312 m grading 0.69 g/t gold, including 34 m grading 1.38 g/t gold and 46 m grading 1.29 g/t gold.
CMR-089 drill hole intersects the northeast portion of the higher grade gold zone near surface returning 30 m grading 1.29 g/t gold before continuing into the barren wall rock. At the NW portion of CMD-126 drill hole, the Lynx Zone divides into a range of gold zones narrowing towards CMR-130 drill hole which returned small intervals of lower grade material.
Lengthy intervals of gold mineralization, like the 186 m grading 0.40 g/t gold and 216 m grading 0.50 g/t gold, validated the continuity of low to average grade mineralization that exists along the Phoenix Zone’s northeast section, as defined during the Phase II drilling campaign. The oxide mineralization continues from surface to depths of more than 500 m and remains exposed at depth.
CMR-149 and CMR-155 drill holes encountered a new gold mineralization zone striking NW from the NE corner of the Crux Zone analogous to the Cerro Maricunga gold deposit. CMR-149 intersected 68 m grading 0.56 g/t gold, and CMR-155 intersected 222 m grading 0.45 g/t gold and ended with 0.76 g/t gold. CMR-150 drill hole interested several narrow intervals of +0.3 g/t gold mineralization and ended with 14 m grading 0.73 g/t.
Additional drilling is required to validate the continuity of the gold mineralization in the region and also to confirm the link between the mineralization intersected in CMR-155 drill hole and the mineralization intersected at the end of CMR-150 drill hole.
The resource estimate of Cerro Maricunga stands at 1.62 M oz of gold in the indicated category along with 1.95 M oz of gold in the inferred category. This resource estimation was based on a 0.3 g/t gold cut-off grade.