Iron Creek Capital Corp. (TSX-V: IRN) has announced further progress on the Victoria Joint Venture with Hochschild Mining Holdings Ltd.
The Victoria Property, which covers 37km of continuous strike length of the highly productive Domeyko Fault Zone in northern Chile, is located approximately midway between the world-class porphyry copper districts at Escondida and El Salvador.
Hochschild's work to date is centered on the Vaquillas deposit, an historic precious metals mine located roughly in the center of the Victoria property. A 5,000m diamond drilling program is currently underway at Vaquillas scheduled for completion before year end. Highlights of recent results from the Vaquillas program and from ongoing exploration for porphyry-style mineralization include:
- Diamond drill hole VVQDD-10-035 cut 78.50m @ 0.93 g/t Au + 15.42 g/t Ag, including 1.21m @ 18.8 g/t Au + 392 g/t Ag;
- Diamond drill hole VVQDD-10-034 cut 15.13m @ 0.80 g/t Au + 6.52 g/t Ag;
- Diamond drill hole VVQDD-10-036 cut 21.00m @ 0.55 g/t Au + 4.77 g/t Ag;
- Diamond drill hole VVQDD-10-039 cut 1.82m @ 6.04 g/t Au + 12.72 g/t Ag
- Drilling has extended the overall strike length of the mineralized trend to approximately 1km, and is still open to the north and south.
- Discovery of a large area of hydrothermal alteration, including extensive silicification and alunite, at Lena, in the southeast of the Victoria Property.
- Mapping of an undrilled quartz-vein stockwork over an area of approximately 800m x 400m associated with porphyry copper style alteration and supergene turquoise mineralization at the Picaron prospect on the west side of the Victoria Property.
In a September 3rd, 2010 news release, IRN reported that the use of RC drilling at Vaquillas may understate the gold and silver grades of the mineralization. The current drill program appears to confirm this finding: an early RC drill hole (VVQRC-09-018) was twinned with a new diamond drill hole (VVQDD-10-035) which, again, returned higher gold and silver grades.
The Victoria Joint Venture covers approximately 45,000 hectares and is prospective for porphyry copper deposits (+/- Mo +/- Au) together with genetically related, zoned, epithermal precious metals deposits. In early November 2010 Hochschild exercised its option to acquire a 60% interest in the Joint Venture by incurring US$6.0 million in exploration expenditures (see press release dated November 5th, 2010).
Exploration work, including geological mapping, trenching and RC drilling, continues at a number of other targets within the Victoria Property.
Vaquillas Precious Metals Target
Hochschild has focused attention to date on a possible open-pittable, low-grade, oxide Au+Ag resource, underlain by contiguous, potential mixed oxide/sulphide and sulphide resources, in the Vaquillas Mine area of the Victoria Property. A total of 8,883m has been drilled by Hochschild in 32 RC holes, together with approximately 3,800m in 16 diamond drill holes to date. Assay results for 8 diamond drill holes have been received, significant results for two of which have been reported previously (see press release dated September 3rd, 2010).
The intercepts reported are the length of the drill core intersection as the true orientation of the mineralization remains to be fully established. Intercepts were averaged using a 0.3 g/t Au cut-off and/or a 30 g/t Ag cut-off. Less than 1% of internal intercepts were accepted below the cut off grades and no capping was used in the calculations.
Significantly, diamond drill hole VVQDD-10-35 drilled as a twin to reverse circulation hole VVQRC-09-018, located in the approximate center of the Vaquillas Mine trend and to the west of the small, historic open pit, returned significantly better gold and silver values, suggesting losses of mineralized material in the presence of water in the original RC drilling.
This corroborates previously reported improvements in gold and silver grades from a diamond drill hole twin to a previous RC hole (see press release dated September 3rd, 2010 for further details).
Whilst hole VVQDD-10-035 was drilled in the approximate centre of the Vaquillas Mine trend, holes VVQDD-10-034, 036 and 037 indicate continuations of the mineralized breccia trend along strike to the north, and holes VVQDD-10-038 and 039 suggest continuations of mineralized structures to the south. The overall strike length of the mineralized trend is now approximately 1km, and is still open.
Porphyry Copper and Other Precious Metals Targets
Recent geological mapping has revealed the presence of a new, large area of hydrothermal alteration, including extensive silicification and alunite, associated with a feldspar porphyry intrusion at Leña, in the southeast of the Victoria Property. Massive vuggy silica replacement of a volcanic unit occurs on the western margins of the altered intrusion.
Mapping has also delineated a significant quartz-vein stockwork over an area of approximately 800m x 400m associated with porphyry copper style alteration and supergene turquoise mineralization at the Picaron prospect on the west side of the Victoria Property. Although shallow drilling at Picaron has been carried out by other companies in the past, including one short hole reportedly cut potassic alteration, the area of stockwork veining has not been previously drill tested.
Hochschild continues to explore several other targets on the Victoria property. Exploration RC drilling for porphyry copper mineralization is currently underway at the Incahuasi prospect; for porphyry copper and associated precious metals mineralization at the newly developing Lena prospect; and for further precious metals mineralized structures at the Nueve Vidas prospect. All these prospects are located in the southern half of the Victoria Property.
QA/QC
Hochschild's samples are collected in accordance with accepted industry standards and best practices. Samples are submitted respectively to ACME Laboratories and ALS Chemex in Santiago and La Serena, Chile, for analysis. As standard procedure, Hochschild conducts routine quality-assurance and quality-control analysis on all assay results, including the systematic utilization of certified reference materials, blanks and field duplicates.
Qualified Person
Demetrius Pohl, P.Geo., is the Company's Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and is responsible for the accuracy of the technical information in this news release. Dr. Pohl has verified that it is an accurate summary of the reports provided to Iron Creek by Hochschild; however, Iron Creek has not independently verified Hochschild's exploration results.
Source: Iron Creek Capital Corp.