Santa Fe Metals Corp. ("Santa Fe" or the "Company") announces that its Sully project team has now completed review of all fieldwork results obtained in October and November 2013. That work has led to the identification of two large scale, vertical and parallel sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) targets.
Both the East and West targets are located within the broad 4km x 3km Sully gravity anomaly that has been the focus of exploration drilling to date. The name of the property is derived from the world-class Sullivan Mine SEDEX deposit, located at Kimberley, BC, 27km west of Sully.
Geophysics Update
The Sully project is first and foremost a geophysical target. Detailed gravity surveying over drill hole SU13-06 (and its surrounds) in November, 2013 identified the two vertical targets for the first time. The East and West masses clearly trend north - south in a parallel configuration and have approximately 800m of country rock between them. Both East and West targets are interpreted to be present within 1,000m of surface and extend to great depth to account for the calculated size of each mass. Both masses are believed to be vertical, in part because of the gravity response but also because of refinements to the geological model and the property's structural setting described below. Further, it is believed the parallel proximity of these two large masses served to blur and obscure their occurrence, presenting as a single large footprint in earlier gravity interpretations. Detailed analysis and interpretation of Cominco's 1990 AeroMag data reveals magnetic anomalies coincident (or overlapping) both East and West gravity targets. Gravity and magnetics are very different geophysical parameters; that both define two distinct and parallel sources approximately 800m apart presents very compelling exploration targets, neither of which have ever been tested by drilling.
Geological Model Refinements
Drill hole SU13-06 included sampling of over 100 oriented cores revealing a surprising degree of uniformity from surface to over 1,500m depth. Structures observed in the drill hole are consistent with a block-rotation model recently proposed by Paul Ransom, P.Geo. That model is also currently being investigated through a Geoscience BC-funded research project. The model suggests that after folding and mountain building the northern Hughes Range (including the Sully property) rotated almost 90 degrees such that bedding is now steeply dipping and several faults that were once near-vertical are now almost flat-lying.
The complex interplay of folding and faulting, and the subsequent rotation are interpreted to have caused local repeats, or en echelon recurring beds of the now vertical stratigraphy. This concept provides a very useful explanation for the mechanical evolution of the East and West masses. They may have been an initially flat-lying SEDEX deposit that has been folded, faulted into two large portions and ultimately rotated into the parallel and proximal targets identified now by coincident geophysical anomalies described above.
The Sully project is fully permitted, has good access from local highways and can readily support year-round drilling programs. The Company looks forward to recommencing the next phase of drilling at Sully early in the New Year.
Sullivan Mine Legacy
Sullivan was discovered in 1892 and is known to be one of the largest SEDEX deposits in the world. Over its 100-year lifetime, Sullivan produced almost 300 million ounces of silver, 17.5 billion pounds of zinc and 18.5 billion pounds of lead, and other metals collectively worth over $45-billion at current metal prices. The Company cautions that past results or discoveries on proximate land are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be achieved on the Sully Property.
This news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul Ransom P.Geo. who is defined as a qualified person in accordance with National Instrument 43-101.
Source: http://www.santafemetals.com