First drilling by Genesis Minerals highlights Argentina gold potential

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) has claimed the first drilling campaign conducted at the company’s Las Opeñas project in Argentina has discovered wide zones of gold mineralisation with silver, lead and zinc.

The company said the results support its conviction Las Opeñas could potentially host a multi-million-ounce gold deposit in a large epithermal system.

Genesis also indicated it considers recent rock chip samples and mapping confirm potential for narrow, high-grade veins within this system.

These veins, which Genesis said will be drill tested as part of an exploration program to be carried out in the New Year, would boost the economics of a bulk-tonnage operation.

 

Las Opeñas drill hole locations and results. Source: Company announcement

 

In the recently-completed first drilling program, a wide zone of gold mineralisation was intersected, with analytical results including:

–    115m at 0.58g/t gold, 3.5g/t silver, 0.24 per cent lead and 0.65 per cent zinc from 18m to end of hole, including 47.1m at 0.84g/t gold, 3.5g/t silver, 0.21 per cent lead and 0.63 per cent zinc from 80.4m.

A further hole intersected:

–    29.4m at 0.57g/t gold, 9.9g/t silver, 0.29 per cent lead and 1.1 per cent zinc from 65m.

“Our first program of drilling at Las Opeñas confirmed the excellent potential of this project,” Genesis Minerals managing director Michael Fowler said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“This potential is demonstrated by the wide zones of gold mineralisation returned in the limited drilling completed so far, as well as the numerous high-grade structural targets that are untested at Las Opeñas.”

Genesis mentioned exploration planned for next year will be targeted at rapidly and systematically testing the breccia and high–grade vein systems at Las Opeñas with the aim of confirming the significance of the epithermal mineralisation at the project.