Base and precious metals
Status:
The latest work on the project is by Compañía Minera Casapalca SA, which completed a program of 5 short holes, 1,219 m in 2018 in a small area of the project. The objective to confirm the continuity of outcropping mineralized bodies, at depth, as well as a high-grade polymetallic vein, traced on the surface for more than 1km.
The drilling confirmed polymetallic mineralization in veins and bodies, and also confirmed the presence of a Copper and Molybdenum porphyry.
Location:
The Chavin project is located in one of the prolific polymetallic belts of the Cordillera Negra, in the Western part of the Central Andes. The Chavín Property covers an area of 14 square kilometers.
Chavín is located 70 km NW of the Pierina gold-silver mine operated by Barrick Gold Corporation and approximately 10 km SW of Teck Resources’ Pashpap Cu-Mo porphyry project.
Property:
100% owned. In November 2015, the Company entered into a production lease agreement with Casapalca (Alpayama) in the Chavín project, a contract that ended in November 2018.
In January 2017, Sandstorm Gold Ltd. purchased a 50% stake in Chavín NSR. Upon termination of Casapalca’s production royalty agreement, Sandstorm’s stake in Chavín became a 0.5% NSR.
Previous work:
Condor awarded Chavín to Silex Perú SRL, the Peruvian subsidiary of Golden Minerals Company, in 2010, and Silex spent more than $400,000 over the next year and advanced the project to the drill-ready stage, including community approval and drilling permits, in advance of a planned 12-well, 2,650 m drilling program. A corporate merger and change of objectives at Silex’s parent company in 2011 led Silex to return the project to Condor.
While Chavín was under Silex option, Silex contracted an environmental impact study, constructed 6.5 km of access road to the project and an additional 1.5 km within the property boundaries, and constructed a base camp. Silex also carried out geological mapping at a scale of 1:1000, a topographic survey for control, and collected and analyzed a total of 369 surface samples of the main vein and the surrounding silicified and oxidized structures, in addition to taking 25 samples of the Existing 60 m long access tunnel. .
The main vein identified to date has been traced over 1000 meters with an average width of 2 to 5 meters. Preliminary channel samples over a length of 3 to 5 meters through this vein have returned polymetallic values from negligible to a maximum of 13.9 g/t Au, 1,645 g/t Ag, 25.7% Pb, 10, 7% Zn and 0.2% Cu. These results indicate potential for the discovery of high-grade ‘bonanza-style’ mineralization within this vein system. Quartz vein stocks within the host intrusive are also anomalous and will be evaluated for epithermal precious metal mineralization.
Previous small-scale mining activity on the main Chavín vein included a 50-metre-long tunnel to follow mineralization, dating back to the 1970s. In the 1990s, a small drilling program resulted in the drilling of three short holes, two of which did not completely reach the structure. The third hole appears to have been drilled primarily within the hanging wall of the vein and from surface averaged 1.14 g/t Au, 26 g/t Ag, 2% Pb and 1% Zn over 14.1 metres, before exit mineralization. This work does not comply with NI-43-101 and therefore cannot be relied upon.
Geology/Mineralization:
The claims cover a significant polymetallic vein system, which has been exploited on a small scale at various times since at least the colonial era. The main vein, with a steep slope, shows significant values of gold and silver, both in massive sulfides and in sectors of druze quartz, along approximately 500 meters, and is the main exploration objective.
