VANCOUVER, BC - Columbus Silver Corporation reported the successful completion of recent initiatives to consolidate and increase its property position in the Mogollon silver-gold district, Catron County, New Mexico.
The Mogollon project was acquired in January 2009 under an agreement with John S. Livermore granting Columbus Silver the option to acquire 100% of his rights and interests in the Mogollon project, which he held pursuant to a number of underlying lease and option agreements dating from 1978. Columbus Silver has entered into three new mining leases directly with the underlying owners, replacing the previous agreements. The new leases simplify the commercial relationships with the underlying property owners at Mogollon and eliminate title uncertainties connected with a succession of assignments of the older agreements.
New leases were entered into with John Mack, Frederick Hott, and Wesley Parker; and Mogollon Enterprises, Inc. for the patented claim blocks respectively covering the historically productive Little Fanny and Consolidated mines and the Last Chance-Confidence mines. A third lease was entered into with Sage Associates, Inc., for the unpatented Escondido claims covering potential untested extensions of the productive vein systems in the eastern part of the district. The new leases have 10-year terms renewable at Columbus Silver's election and call for annual advance royalty payments of US$40,000 in the aggregate, deductible from underlying net smelter returns production royalties.
The Company has also increased its land position at Mogollon through the staking of 18 unpatented claims totaling 360 acres and the purchase of the Independence-Ida May group of 10 patented mining claims, totaling approximately 187 acres, outright from Metallic Ventures Inc. for US$100,000. The patented claim group covers the important Independence-Ida May veins which are located just north and west of the Little Fanny and Consolidated mines and represent principal targets of the initial Columbus Silver exploration program. The unpatented claims are located adjacent to the Gold Dust vein which is also a key target for the Company's initial program.??The Mogollon district, located 75 miles (120 km) northwest of Silver City in southwest New Mexico, covers an extensive, silver-gold bearing epithermal vein field with historic production, largely from the Little Fanny and Last Chance mines during the period 1905 to 1925, and the Consolidated Mine from 1937 to 1942, of 15,700,000 ounces silver and 327,000 ounces gold from about 1.7 million tons of ore. Mining ceased in 1942 due to the wartime cessation of all gold and silver mining in the
Modern exploration activity at Mogollon has been limited to small programs by St. Joe Minerals and Sage Associates in the early 1980's and more comprehensive evaluations by Cordex in 1984 and John Livermore in 1988. These programs, comprising about 50 rotary and diamond core holes for an aggregate 40,000 ft (12,192 m), were successful in outlining a silver-gold deposit in the Queen vein, containing approximately 845,000 tons with an average grade of 9.35 ounces per ton silver and 0.15 ounces per ton gold.
The Mogollon silver-gold deposits are classic epithermal veins which demonstrate good continuity of grade and thickness for strike lengths of up to 4,000 ft (1,219 m) in the Little Fanny and Last Chance mines and through a remarkably consistent, elevation-controlled vertical range of about 1,000 ft (305 m). There are two sets of veins at Mogollon, an east-west set represented by the productive Little Fanny and Last Chance veins, and a north-south set represented by the Queen vein developed in the Consolidated Mine. The initial Columbus Silver program will focus on testing the east-west trending Gold Dust, Independence-Ida May and Anna E veins and confirmation, delineation and expansion of the silver-gold deposit in the Queen vein. The highly prospective east-west veins have near-surface characteristics similar to the historically productive Little Fanny and Last Chance veins but have only been explored by shallow workings above the highly predictable Mogollon productive zone.
The historic figures presented herein are not NI 43-101 compliant.
The company’s address is
604-689-2599, fax: 604-689-3609, email: [email protected].