Argentex provides update on silver-gold exploration activities in Santa Cruz, Argentina
Argentex Mining Corporation is pleased to provide an update of its exploration activities from its three most advanced mineral properties in the prospective Deseado Massif region of Santa Cruz province, Patagonia, Argentina. The Pinguino, Cerro Contreras and Condor properties are the current focus of advanced exploration activities.
Pinguino Silver Project
In preparation for extensive new drilling scheduled to commence shortly, Argentex has completed a program of advanced exploration and drill target definition including trenching and geophysics. Approximately 275 line-kilometers of ground magnetometer surveys have been completed as well as 1,200 meters of trenching and channel sampling in key areas of precious metal mineralization.
Approximately 17,000 meters of drilling is planned in 2011 for the Pinguino property. Argentex plans to begin drill-testing the extents of previously identified high-grade silver targets. These areas include the Tranquilo and Luna veins at Pinguino, which returned high-grade results in previous drill programs, including 6.0 meters of over 2,400 g/t silver and 0.22 g/t gold and 6.4 meters of 486.6 g/t silver and 1.91 g/t gold
More than 50 individual veins have so far been discovered at Pinguino, with a combined strike length in excess of 75 line kilometers. Only a small percentage of veins and potential targets have been drill tested in the 36,000 meters of drilling completed at Pinguino to date.
“We are focusing our exploration activities on defining and expanding previously discovered silver and gold mineralization at Pinguino,” said Ken Hicks, President of Argentex. “We are fortunate to have a number of high-quality projects in Santa Cruz with excellent potential for discovery. With our strong treasury and a comprehensive exploration program in progress, we look forward to an exciting year of discovery in 2011.”
The Pinguino project is unique within the Deseado Massif region of Santa Cruz province with two different and geographically distinct types of mineralization, one precious metal and the other sulphide-rich polymetallic. The company continues to evaluate the geological model of sulphide-enriched potentially mineralized intrusives at depth, forming the source for the polymetallic veins exposed on surface. In December 2010, Argentex initiated a deep gradient IP geophysical test in Pinguino’s core area of sulphide-rich veins.
Cerro Contreras Gold Property
Cerro Contreras is an advancing exploration-stage epithermal gold project in the northern part of the Deseado Massif. Previous sampling has identified key areas with anomalous gold mineralization. The company recently completed detailed mapping in two areas: Main Vein (2.5 km by 2 km) and NW Dome (1.2 km by 0.5 km). A comprehensive program of geochemical sampling, including soils (544), screened samples (636) and rock channels (126), has also been recently completed. In addition, approximately 60 kilometers of gradient IP geophysics was carried out on the Main Vein target with detailed ground magnetometer surveys totaling 500 line kilometers completed on both targets. Analytical data is being compiled and integrated with geophysics.
Condor Gold Property
Follow-up exploration at Condor is focused on an updated geological model based on evidence derived from previous work. This evidence points toward a model of low-grade, large-tonnage gold mineralization composed of chalcedony and sulphide-rich hydrothermal breccias within rhyolitic domes. New work included detailed mapping covering approximately 16 square kilometers with 35 rock chip samples collected. In addition, approximately 1,600 soil and lag samples were collected for geochemical analysis. Detailed mapping revealed multiple previously unrecognized breccias zones. Several of these zones contain anomalies over 0.1 g/t gold, two returned over 0.5 g/t gold and one returned 14 g/t gold. Work is continuing.
