MARIFIL MINES LTD. reports drilling began on February 3rd on its Cerro Samenta porphyry copper project in Salta Province, Argentina. The Company's joint venture partner, Southern Copper Corp. (SCCO), plans to drill six holes totalling about 3,000 meters.
DDH-1-S-14 was drilled at an angle of -45° to a depth of 500 meters. Persistent supergene copper mineralization is observed in the core throughout the first 125 meters. This mineralization includes neoticite (a manganese copper oxide), malachite, and chrysocolla (the latter two are oxide copper minerals). A second interval from 220 and 260 meters shows stronger oxide copper mineralization.
DDH-2-S-14 is located about 350 meters southeast of DDH1 and was in progress when a Company representative was present.
A third drill site has been set in the valley to the east of and well below the elevation of the first two holes in order to achieve a deeper penetration of the observed copper mineralization.
The HQ & NQ size drill cores are being sawed lengthwise into two meter samples to be sent to the SGS preparatory station in Mendoza, and from there to an SGS assay laboratory in Lima, Peru.
Marifil reported channel sampling copper assay results of ten trenches located in the vicinity of DDHs 1 & 2 prior to venturing the property with SCCO (see the Company's press release February 29, 2012). The sampling program was carried out by Petro Gold Services Mineros S.R.L., an independent geological services company based in Santiago, Chile. Trenches I and M are located 200 to 400 meters east of a line between DDH 1 and DDH 2. Trench I contains 52 meters of 1.21% copper, and Trench M exposes 22 meters of 4.19% copper.
Five SCCO geologists are working on the property. In addition to the drilling, they are accomplishing grid geochemical sampling (so far 1,322 samples), detailed geological and topographic mapping and surveying, and continuous rock chip sampling using an excavator for trenching. This work defines a three phase granodioritic porphyry system with associated volcanics. The two earlier phases are mineralized with copper; the youngest phase is un-mineralized.
Marifil's Cerro Samenta property is a porphyry Cu-Mo prospect located 270 kilometers west of the city of Salta in the Puna region of northwestern Argentina. It covers 5,300 hectares located on the transverse continental scale Archibarca Lineament, which also localizes Escondida situated 120 kilometers to the northwest of Samenta in Chile, as well as several other porphyry copper properties in the region including the nearby Taca Taca copper-gold molybdenum deposit (Lumina Copper Corp.) and also the Rio Grande (Regulus Resources Inc.) and Lindero/Arizaro (Goldrock Mines Corp.) copper-gold deposits.
Marifil expects to release more information on this drilling program as it becomes available. It is projected for completion by late April. Complete drill cores assay returns should be available in the next few months.
Source: https://www.marifilmines.com/