Southern Silver Completes Cerro Las Minitas Property Transfer from Freeport

 

VANCOUVER - Southern Silver Exploration Corp. reported that Freeport McMoRan Exploration Corporation (FMEC) relinquished its option to earn an indirect interest in the Cerro Las Minitas project after having spent $5.5 million on exploration and option payments to the underlying vendor. Company personnel have received geological data derived from 7000 meters of drilling in 13 core holes and have taken possession of the property in a recent visit to the project. The property is currently being mined by the underlying Optionor at the maximum rate of 50 tpd with mining being concentrated on the high grade silver, lead, zinc mineralization at the Blind zone and the El Sol zone. Both zones were discovered by the Company through drilling of 23,310 meters in 75 core holes between 2010 and 2014.

The Company has traced the Blind zone and El Sol mineralization at nominal 50 to 80 meter drill spacing for a cumulative 820 meters strike-length in a northwest-southeast direction and to depths of up to 550 meters in some drill holes. Small scale mining on both zones is being conducted through two recently constructed shafts and head frames constructed by the Optionor. The shafts are approximately 3m x 3m with poured concrete walls and have been designed to access high-grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization that was identified in drill hole CLM11-008 (10.9m averaging 268g/t Ag, 4.5%Pb and 3.8% Zn) and in drill hole CLM11-16 (4.5m averaging 192g/t Ag, 0.3% Cu, 5.3% Pb and 8.4% Zn). The shafts are located 200 meters apart and extend to over 100 meters in depth. Mineralized material is winched out of the shafts and is hand sorted before transport to a local mill facility for processing and sale. Mining has been ongoing for 4 to 5 months and the Company estimates that the Optionor has shipped up to 3,000 tonnes of mineralized material in that period.