Highlights
- The project is located in the central portion of the department of Antioquia about 55 kilometers northeast of Medellin
- Geologically situated on the Antioquia Batholith.
- Comprised of 10 concessions totalling 5,630 Hectares
- Structurally controlled, mesothermal, high grade vein deposits. Ore mineralization of interest is predominantly gold with associated silver, copper and molybdenum
- Potential economic deposits in the project area include gold copper porphyries, mesothermal gold and metals, precious metal veins and stockworks.
- Extensive history of high grade artisanal gold mining on the project area
- Exploration projects in the vicinity include AngloGold Ashanti/ B2Gold (Gramalote Project), and Colombian Mines/Arturus Ventures (Nus Project).
- Excellent access, infrastructure and security in the area
- Strong local support and involvement in the project
- Environmental baseline work ongoing.
Overview
The Cisneros project area consists of ten concessions with a total area of approximately 5,630 ha. The project area is 55km northeast of Medellin and 2km west of Cisneros. The project area is in the Department of Antioquia, and lies partially within the municipalities of Cisneros, Yolumbo and Santo Domingo on the main route that leads from Medellin to the Caribbean coast to the north via the Magdalena River. The properties underlie numerous small villages and towns, including La Quiebra, El Limón, Santiago and Bareno. The properties are held as concessions for gold, silver and related minerals.
Antioquia has 100% ownership of eight of the concessions (3 of which are referred to as the Guayabito properties, 4 of which are referred to as the La Manuela lands and 1 that is referred to as Pacho Luis. Antioquia is also partnered with Grupo de Bullet in a 90%/10% joint venture ownership of the two Santo Domingo properties (previously referred to as the Bullet lands).
Gold mining in the Cisneros area has been carried out since Pre-Colombian times to the present. The Cisneros Project is underlain by an intrusive body of granodiorite to quartz diorite composition, called the Antioquia Batholith. Mineralization is controlled by structural trends, and specifically zones of extensional dilation along these trends, and is evidenced by anomalous gold occurrences in more than 60 artisanal mining operations in the project area (more than 40 located on Antioquia Gold concessions).
The climate is tropical though with elevations ranging between 1,200m and 1,800m the temperature is very pleasant. Transportation service to the area is provided daily by the bus companies Coopetransa and Coonorte from the city of Medellin. There are several hotels in Cisneros. There is ample single-phase electrical energy coverage and water is abundant with all three drainages on the property flowing year round. The project area has a (COMCEL) signal for cellular phones. Internet, fax and scanner services can be obtained in the municipality of Cisneros. The National Police has permanent presence in the urban area of Cisneros. As well, the Army has a permanent base and does continuous patrols in the region. The property is mountainous with the western slopes being used as sugar cane plantations and to a lesser extent coffee growing operations at the higher elevations. The western slopes are gentle and there are three main drainage gullies trending to the west-southwest.
Regional Geology
The majority of the Cisneros area is underlain by an intrusive body of granodiorite to quartz diorite composition called the Antioquia Batholith. In the project area, the batholith is cut by two fault systems: one trending northwest, the other trending east-northeast.
The Antioquia Batholith covers an area of 7,221 km2 and its satellite bodies, a further 322 km2. In the centre and eastern part of the province, it is characterized as having lithologic homogeneity with little variation from one place to another. The normal facies have a tonalite and granodiorite composition and there are subordinate facies, one felsic and the other gabbroic.
Deposit Type
The Guayabito occurrences can be classified as a structurally controlled mesothermal lode-gold deposit (Hodgson, 1993). The exploration target on the Cisneros project area is orogenic lode gold deposits also known as mesothermal vein deposits. Numerous examples of this type of deposit are known throughout the world including the Campbell Red Lake deposits in Ontario, the Bralorne deposit in British Columbia and the Parcoy Mine in Peru (owned and operated by Consorcio Minero Horizonte, an associated company of Antioquia's Strategic Partner, Desafio Minero S.A.C) . To date, exploration studies have demonstrated that the vein systems on the Cisneros properties have all of the attributes of the orogenic vein gold deposit including, but not limited to association with major structural break, quartz-carbonate vein association, low-sulphide assemblage with pyrite, chloritic and sericitically altered wall rocks.
Mineralization
Gold at Cisneros occurs in shear zones, up to 16m in true thickness, containing veins and veinlets of quartz and pyrite, with lesser chalcopyrite and traces of molybdenite. Gold is most closely associated with fine grained pyrite. The majority of the veins appear to be of mesothermal origin, however, some quartz textures observed in N 50°E, 80°SE veins in the Tunel Hiro appeared to be of possible chalcedonic composition, suggesting a range in temperature of formation that includes the upper level of the epithermal classification. The veins throughout the property can display geochemically anomalous Au, Ag, Cu, Mo, and Bi, suggestive of being peripheral to and above, and likely derived from, a porphyry Cu-Mo system at an unknown depth."
Structural Geology
There is a series of east-northeast trending structural breaks or faults crossing the Guayabito/La Magdelena/Pacho Luis part of the Cisneros area that may be the primary control of alteration and mineralization on the property. There are potentially four of these structural breaks crossing the property, as defined by stream gullies and the location of old underground exploration workings. The structures are up to one kilometer long (the length of the stream gullies), though the width, depth and continuity is unknown.
From a structural geology perspective, the driving mechanisms that control the gold mineralization on the Cisneros property are N 80° E strike-slip faults that early on created en echelon sinistral (left-lateral) dilational jogs that allowed extension and mineralization to occur along N-S to N 20° E normal faults. Later, the principal stress direction was apparently rotated clockwise from NNE-SSW to NW-SE, which in turn allowed a transition to dextral (right-lateral) movement on the same N 80° E strike- slip faults. This dextral movement then created extension and mineral deposition along N 40° to 60° W normal faults that were formed within dilational jogs in the right-lateral sense.
Exploration programs to date have emphasized testing the main N 80° E driving structures and the secondary N-S to N 20° E and N35° to 55° E normal structures formed within the earlier sinistral dilational jog systems. These normal structures generally have shown some of the best gold values in current exploration drilling and small-scale vein mining. The gold grades throughout the Cisneros district have been good, with local grades of 5g/t Au to +15 g/t Au (with individual samples occationally exceeding 200 g/t Au), with true vein widths commonly pinching and swelling between 0.1m to ~1.5m, often within a broader structural zone of up to 16m true width.
Prospect Development and Modeling
Since early on in the exploration at Cisneros, the importance of the structural control has been known. The main focus on early exploration was to define the structural environment and the structures controlling mineralization and to find the appropriate exploration tools to efficiently identify drilling targets and ultimately define mineralized resources within these structures.
Initially, the main driving structures and mineralized structures were defined by using air photographs and surface mapping of outcrops and artisanal operations.
Exploration History
Pre 2007
- 100+ years of artisanal mining (to date 62 artisanal mining and tunneling operations have been identified in the Cisneros area)
2007
- Due diligence sampling (seven rock samples, taken to Canada for testing)
- Reconnaissance mapping and sampling (73 soil samples)
- Mapping and sampling of nine underground workings (113 rock samples)
- Total: 221 samples (186 property samples, 31 QA/QC samples, four metallurgical test samples
2008
- Structural and alteration mapping of Guayabito and La Manuela properties
- Geochemical sampling of Guayabito and La Manuela properties ((645 rock samples (+ 43 rock QA/QC samples)
and 271 soil samples (+ 34 soil QA/QC samples))
- Reconnaissance mapping and geochemical sampling of Santo Domingo property
2009
- Three geophysical surveys (magnetometer and IP) at Guayabito, La Manuela and Chapulin prospects,
- Drilling on Guayabito and La Manuela properties (30 drillholes, 3,939m), Energold Drilling Colombia SAS
- Structural and alteration mapping and sampling of Santo Domingo property
(48 rock samples, 300 stream sediment samples)
2010
- Geophysical surveys
- Ground magnetometer and VLF magnetometer of Guayabito and La Manuela (in house)
- Ground IP survey of Guaybaito and La Manuela (Jose Arce Geophysic- Lima, Peru)
- Geochemical (soil) surveys of Guayabito, La Manuela and Guaico prospects
- Geochemical (stream sediment) sampling of Santo Domingo
- Drilling on La Manuela property (43 drillholes, 8000m to December 2010), Major Drilling (MD Colombia SA) and Logan Drilling SA
Exploration Maps