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Mirasol Resources Ltd
Symbol MRZ
Shares Issued 53,822,628
Close 2018-08-30 C$ 1.55
Market Cap C$ 83,425,073
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Mirasol Resources recaps progress at Indra project

2018-08-30 09:55 ET - News Release

Mr. Stephen Nano reports

MIRASOL PROGRESSES INDRA EPITHERMAL PRECIOUS METAL PROJECT IN NORTHERN CHILE

Mirasol Resources Ltd. has made progress at the company's 100-per-cent-owned 21,000-hectare Indra epithermal precious metal project, located five kilometres south of the 1.37-million-ounce El Guanaco gold mine in northern Chile.

Indra highlights:

  • Indra is subject to the recently announced letter of intent for an option to joint venture with Hochschild Mining PLC.
  • Mirasol's interpretation suggests the project encompasses the upper levels of a large epithermal precious system.
  • The outcropping rocks are of a prospective geological age, and lie within a favourable structural setting on the Paleocene Age mineral belt.
  • The project is located at relatively low elevation with year-round access, and is adjacent to mine infrastructure.
  • Mirasol and Hochschild are planning a geological mapping, geochemical sampling, alteration vectoring and ground magnetics program for the southern hemisphere spring and summer (fourth quarter of 2018), that will contribute toward the $800,000 (U.S.) minimum commitment for the first 18-month exploration program.

Letter of intent

The Indra project is subject to a recently announced letter of intent for an option to joint venture with Hochschild Mining, which, contingent on completion of a successful due diligence by HOC, will grant HOC the option to earn up to 75 per cent of the project. HOC can elect to make a series of exploration and development investments at the project, make staged cash payments to Mirasol of $725,000 (U.S.), and at Mirasol's request provide production financing for the company's retained 25-per-cent project interest (see news release Aug. 29, 2018). Mirasol will be the operator for the first 18 months (extendable, at the request of HOC, for a further 12 months), earning a scaled management fee of up to 10 per cent of exploration expenditures.

Indra project

The project was staked by Mirasol as an outcome of the company's Atacama-Puna Generative exploration program and encompasses what Mirasol interprets may be the upper levels of a large epithermal gold-silver system. Mirasol has identified a limited number of prospect pits at Indra estimated to be from the 1900s; however, there is no evidence of modern exploration at the project despite year-round access and location adjacent to an operating mine.

The Indra project is located in Paleocene Age mineral belt of northern Chile. The belt hosts a number of world-class mines, including Yamana Gold's El Penon low sulphidation epithermal (LSE) Au-Ag mine (6.95 million ounces of Au and 188.1 million oz Ag) and BHP Billiton's Spence porphyry-copper mine.

Indra is localized at the intersection of the Paleocene age volcanic arc with the northwest-southeast-oriented Culampaja structural corridor. The Culampaja is considered an important crustal-scale, trans-orogen structure that has influenced the emplacement of many large-scale precious metal and copper deposits in northern Chile and Argentina, including Gold Field's recently discovered Salares Norte gold deposit (3.7 million oz Au), located where the structure traverses the Mio-Pliocene age mineral belt, 82 kilometres to the SE of Indra.

The Chilean government published a regional geological map of the area, including Indra, which confirms the presence of a prospective Paleocene age rhyolitic flow dome and volcanic complex. The flow domes have been radiometrically dated at 56.2 million years ago (Ma). Rhyolite flow domes of a similar age are also known to be associated with Yamana's El Penon Au-Ag mine located 84 km to the north of Indra. This association suggests a prospective age for the flow domes and associated alteration system at the Indra project.

The project hosts the following encouraging prospects:

  1. Agni, with a large chalcedony and opal silica alteration system and associated silica-barite structures;
  2. Indra, with a large carbonate-silica vein and vein-breccia zone.

The Indra vein-breccia outcrops intermittently through thin unconsolidated postmineral gravels, and has been mapped for a strike length of more than seven km before it trends under thicker cover. The vein breccias widths range from a few centimetres up to more than 10 metres, and are characterized by well-developed colloform and crustiform textures and brecciation, which are indicative of a high-energy multipulse hydrothermal system.

Rock chip sampling of the Indra vein breccia, and the alteration and veining at Agni, has returned low-level anomalous Au and Ag (max 140 Au parts per billion and 1,690 Ag ppb) combined with very high levels of arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), mercury (Hg) and barium (Ba) epithermal pathfinder elements, as well as strongly anomalous copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn). Alteration mineralogy analysis of the wall rocks hosting the vein breccias at Indra show an interlayered illite and smectite mineral assemblage. The ratio of these minerals in the alteration can be used to estimate the approximate depth to the potentially underlying precious metal interval.

Based on Mirasol's knowledge of this deposit class and ore deposit models developed from studies of epithermal deposits in Chile and other parts of the world, Indra is interpreted as representing the upper levels of a large epithermal system, where high-grade Au-Ag mineralization may be preserved at depth beneath the outcropping Indra and Agni alteration and vein zones. This interpretation is supported by the presence of Indra-like carbonate-silica veining, peripheral to and overlying gold-silver mineralization in the El Penon district, and overlying the ore zone in the multimillion-ounce HOC Arcata gold-silver mine in Peru that has produced in excess of 390,000 ounces Au and 200 million oz Ag.

Mirasol and HOC are currently designing the first phase of the Indra exploration program that will include detailed geological mapping, rock chip sampling, alteration vectoring studies and ground magnetics. It is anticipated that exploration will commence at the project in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Stephen Nano, president and chief executive officer of Mirasol, has approved the technical content of this news release. Mr. Nano is a charter professional geologist and fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CP and FAusIMM) and is a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101.

Quality assurance/quality control of the Indra exploration program

All exploration on the project was supervised by Mr. Nano, who is the qualified person under NI 43-101.

Mirasol applies industry-standard exploration sampling methodologies and techniques. All geochemical soil, stream, rock and drill samples are collected under the supervision of the company's geologists in accordance with industry practice. Geochemical assays are obtained and reported under a quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) program. Samples are dispatched to an ISO 9001:2008 accredited laboratory in Chile for analysis. Assay results from surface rock, channel, trench and drill core samples may be higher, lower or similar to results obtained from surface samples due to surficial oxidation and enrichment processes, or due to natural geological-grade variations in the primary mineralization.

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