- Silver Sands (SAND) drilling expands Santa Rita Gold veining at Virginia
- Drilling at Santa Rita was focused on a series of gold-silver epithermal veins
- Results reported today are for six holes from Santa Rita, four in Santa Rita East and two in Santa Rita Central
- The Santa Rita prospects (Main, Central and East) are located at the intersection of a three kilometre wide northwest orientated regional structural corridor
- At Santa Rita East, four drill holes were completed for a total of 329 m
- Silver Sands Resources Corp. (SAND) is down 8 per cent, trading at C$0.12 at 11:40 am EST
Silver Sands Resources (SAND) has released results from the Santa Rita gold-silver portion of its 2021 Phase III drill program at the Virginia Project in Argentina.
“The new drill results confirm the potential of Santa Rita as a second target area for silver and gold at Virginia, complimenting the Virginia Silver Vein Field,” commented Silver Sands CEO, Keith Anderson.
“We confirmed the veins show both increasing gold and silver values and continuity with depth; the next Phase at Santa Rita will be following the veins down dip to the “boiling horizon” or zone of gold-silver mineralization,” added Anderson.
“Combined with the discovery of high-grade silver mineralization at Margarita and the extensions of the Ely Vein mineralized shoots, management is ecstatic with the results of the Phase III Virginia drilling program. The upcoming Phase IV drill program will continue its focus on increasing the resource base at the Virginia Silver Vein Field, as well as following up the Phase III successes at Santa Rita,” he concluded.
Drilling at Santa Rita was focused on a series of gold-silver epithermal veins, located approximately 15 kilometres north of the Virginia Silver Vein Field, and represents the virgin drill program at the Santa Rita Central and Santa Rita East targets.
The Phase III drilling program comprised 20 core holes with 14 holes for 2,437m at Virginia and six holes for 495m at Santa Rita, located in the north of the property package. Results reported today are for six holes from Santa Rita, four in Santa Rita East and two in Santa Rita Central.
The Santa Rita prospects (Main, Central and East) are located at the intersection of a three-kilometre wide northwest orientated regional structural corridor and east-northeast basin controlling the structural zone.
These east-northeast structural zones are understood to be an important province-wide control on economic mineralization, as exemplified by the structural settings for the Cerro Negro and Cerro Vanguardia mines.
The 2021 drilling focused on the Santa Rita Central and East Zones, located 6.5 to 8.5 km to the east of the Santa Rita Main zone previously explored by Mirasol between 2004 to 2008.
The principal objective of the Santa Rita East and Central 2021 drill program was to test the surface exposures highlighted by 2021 trenching and geophysics to depths of 20 to 30 m to confirm structural orientation data to facilitate subsequent deeper drilling into the “boiling horizon” of the suspected zone of precious metal mineralization.
At Santa Rita East, four drill holes were completed for a total of 329m. Hole SRE-DDH-001 intercepted a robust 5m wide zone of polymictic hydrothermal breccia hosting a 0.40m wide colloform banded quartz adularia vein.
This interval included a 3m wide hydrothermal breccia hosting a quartz adularia colloform epithermal vein in the center with a width of 0.6m. Observed epithermal textures represent multi-pulse hydrothermal events within this structure, which are considered essential for the formation of productive epithermal mineralization.
Equally importantly, gold and silver values in the drill core are slightly stronger than on the surface and are expected to increase at depth. The structures at depth also significantly increase in width compared to the narrow centimetre-scale expressions on the surface.
The remaining two drill holes SRE-DDH-002 and SRE-DDH-004 at the other targets in Santa Rita East intercepted multiple narrow structures, principally hydrothermal crackle breccias and stockwork zones, including 0.65m at 0.45 g/t AuEq[2] and 0.4m at 0.56 g/t gold.
At Santa Rita Central, two holes were completed along with the northwest-trending structure for a total of 166m. Hole SRC-DDH-001 was targeted to test the central part of the structure with gold and silver rock chip samples with up to 1.76 g/t and 321 g/t respectively.
Overall, the drilling campaign at Santa Rita accomplished its objective, confirming the existence of, and tracing the vein outcrop and aligned float surface expressions to depth in the drill holes.
Drilling to date has been very shallow with the deepest hole only reaching 32m vertically below surface. Deeper drilling is required along strike and to depth to confirm the potential of these targets.
The surface and drill results confirm that Santa Rita, particularly Santa Rita Central and East, represent a more “typical” quartz-adularia LSE mineralization that is distinct from Virginia main with both significant gold and silver values.
It is very encouraged with the surface and drill core gold values encountered to date at Santa Rita Central and East, believing they clearly warrant further follow-up drilling.
Silver Sands is earning a 100-per-cent interest in Virginia by issuing sufficient shares for Mirasol to end up with 19.9 per cent of the issued and outstanding of Silver Sands and completing $6-million (U.S.) in exploration over three years.
Silver Sands is a well-financed, Canada-based company engaged in the business of mineral exploration and the acquisition of mineral property assets in mining-friendly jurisdictions.
Silver Sands Resources Corp. (SAND) is down 8 per cent, trading at C$0.12 at 11:40 am EST.
