Initial drill program for the West Iberian Belt Project has been accepted, Emerita Resources Corp. announced. There are three mineralized areas on the West Iberian Belt Property; La Infanta, El Cura and Romanera from east to west. The initial drilling will focus on the Infanta deposit.
The exploration permit granted to Emerita is officially published on the Andalusia Mining portal on the Junta de Andalusia web site. This is a requirement of the permitting process by the Department of Mines of Huelva province, where the Project is located. The Department of Mines is responsible for consulting with the environmental department of Huelva province to secure the environmental permit and authorize the exploration activities.
The initial drilling will focus on the Infanta deposit. This is the zone with the highest grade mineralization on the Project to date and was only drilled to approximately 110 meters depth historically. The mineralized zone at Infanta remains open down dip and along strike. The first drill program will be comprised of approximately 5000 meters of drilling in 22 planned drill holes ranging from 100 meters to 300 meters in length. Planned collar locations are presented on Figure 3 and extend across approximately 2000 meters of strike. The program will be a combination of infill drilling and step out drilling both along strike and down dip to expand the mineralized zone and provide data necessary to complete a National Instrument 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate. The core will be logged and sampled in the Company’s facilities in Puebla de Guzman, located 7kmfrom the Project. The samples will be shipped to ALS prep lab in Seville and assayed in ALS Canada, both labs are independent of Emerita.
Based on consultation with the Environmental Department of Huelva, the Infanta area has no environmental restrictions that would impact a mineral exploration program and therefore the authorization to commence the exploration work will be issued directly by the Department of Mines. The exploration work in the other two areas will commence after an environmental department review and issuing of the Autorizacion Ambiental unificada (AAU) (environmental impact studies) which have been submitted by the Company. Drilling will commence immediately following the required 30 day period during which the reclamation plan for the drill pads has been published for public review on the Government web site which is expected this week.
The municipality of Puebla de Guzman, where La Infanta is located, is actively collaborating with the Company in facilitating the access agreements with the land owners. The Company does not anticipate any issues with respect to accessing the drill sites based on discussions to date.
David Gower, P.Geo., CEO of Emerita, notes, “the Infanta deposit is precious metals enriched. The mineralized intercepts at the Infanta deposit have historical assay values for silver ranging between 100 and 290 g/t that accompany high grade base metal values.’’
West Iberian Belt Project
The West Iberian Belt Project occurs within the Iberian Pyrite Belt, one of the most highly mineralized volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) terranes in the world. The Project is located in the western part of the belt, adjacent to the border with Portugal, approximately 70 km west of Seville and 50 km from the port city of Huelva. The Project extends along a strike length of approximately 18 km. Access is excellent via paved and all-weather gravel roads. Within the Project area, several base metal occurrences have been identified by previous exploration, the most significant of which are the Romanera and the La Infanta base metal deposits.
The Romanera deposit was drilled primarily by Minera Rio Tinto in the 1990s and is reported to contain 34 million tonnes grading 0.42% copper, 2.20% lead, 2.3% zinc 44.4g/t silver and 0.8 g/t gold within which there is a higher grade resource of 11.21 million tonnes grading 0.40% copper, 2.47% lead, 5.50% zinc, 64.0 g/t silver and 1.0 g/t gold. A qualified person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101, has not done sufficient work on behalf of Emerita to classify the historical estimate reported above as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and Emerita is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. The historical estimate should not be relied upon. The deposit extends from surface to approximately 350 meters depth based on historical drilling. The mineralization remains open for further expansion down dip beyond the limits of the existing drilling.
The La Infanta mineralized zone has been drilled from surface where it outcrops to a depth of approximately 100 meters. Numerous high-grade intercepts occur within the zone and it remains open for expansion at shallow depths. Drilling was completed by Phelps Dodge in the mid 1980s. La Infanta is located approximately 8 km to the east of the La Romanera deposit.
Source: investingnews.com
