Also reported today are results from hole EC-16-015 drilled within the Encinal Zone roughly 3 kilometers to the southeast of the Norte Zone. Hole EC-16-015 encountered phyllic alteration overprinting propylitic alteration, indicative of a distal portion of the porphyry system. Nevertheless this hole intersected significant copper and gold values over short intervals including the following highlights:
J. Duane Poliquin, Chairman of Almaden commented, "Since the announcement of hole EC-16-10 which discovered high grades beneath previously identified porphyry mineralistion, our drill program has been focused on identifying controls on mineralisation and a vector to a porphyry core. Now a picture is developing from the data received to date. It has been a very eventful year for Almadex and we are now looking forward to carrying out a systematic drill campaign to follow-up these results to the south of the Norte zone and elsewhere on the project in 2017."
The Norte Zone is located at the north end of a large area (roughly 5 by 4 kilometer in size) of intense hydrothermal alteration, high magnetics and chargeability geophysical responses as well as a broad zone of anomalous gold, copper and molybdenum in soils. The mineralisation in the Norte Zone encountered to date is interpreted to be lithologically controlled and hosted by country rocks distal to the core of a porphyry system which management believes is yet to have been intersected. Geophysical sections highlight that the intersections are in a high level feature connected to a large coincident Induced Polarisation "IP" chargeability and magnetic susceptibility high at depth.
The 2016 drill program was designed to provide geochemical and alteration vectors for future drilling while following up significant results from historic drilling. The Norte Zone holes to date have been successful in defining the potential of the El Cobre project to host a large porphyry copper-gold deposit. At the same time it is clear that the intersections of porphyry mineralisation encountered in past drilling, which has been the focus of the 2016 drilling to date, are peripheral to a possible porphyry centre. In the past, the Company has conducted several campaigns of geophysical surveys including airborne magnetics, shallow IP and 35.8 line kilometers of deep Titan-24 IP. The shallow IP survey has highlighted a large area of high chargeability interpreted to represent sulphides which coalesces into a deep IP chargeability feature which has never been tested. Several plan maps and a section are appended to this news release which show the magnetics and IP chargeability responses in relation to the Norte Zone drilling.
About the El Cobre Project
The El Cobre Project has a total area of 7,456 hectares and is located adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, about 75 kilometres northwest of the major port city of Veracruz, Mexico and has uniquely excellent infrastructure. The project area is situated below 200 meters above sea level with extensive road access and is located less than 10 kilometers from a power plant, highway, gas line and other major infrastructure. Major power lines cross the property area. Almadex has its full drill permits from SEMARNAT and has land access agreements in place. The land ownership is private over most of the project area, has previously been cleared and is used for local agricultural purposes.
The four copper-gold porphyry targets currently known within the El Cobre Project, Encinal, El Porvenir, Norte and Villa Rica are defined by distinct Cu-Au soil anomalies, discrete, positive magnetic features and a large IP chargeability anomaly. The largest target area is the Villa Rica zone which has not been drill tested. Limited past RC and diamond drill testing at Encinal, El Porvenir, and Norte has returned wide intercepts of porphyry copper-gold and narrow zones of intermediate sulphidation epithermal gold-silver vein mineralization, with selected intercepts as follows:
El Porvenir Zone: Drilling has demonstrated that the system persists at least to 400 m depth. Significant copper and gold grades were intersected such as 0.16% Cu and 0.39 g/t Au over 290 m in hole DDH04CB1. In addition, hole EC-13-004 intersected 0.23% Cu and 0.36 g/t Au over 106 m, to a depth of 504 m, again indicating potentially significant mineralization at depth.
Deep IP Zone: To the north of the El Porvenir Zone a large area of high chargeability responses located at depth. This zone is interpreted to be a possible core to the entire El Cobre porphyry system.
Encinal Zone: Hole CB5 intersected a highly altered breccia pipe containing fragments of stockwork veining and porphyry mineralisation across which 15 meters returned 1.63 g/t Au and 0.12% Cu. The breccia pipe occurs in a large alteration zone, IP chargeability high and magnetics low which has not been tested to depth. On July 1, 2016, Almadex reported results of drilling at Encinal, which were consistent with the interpretation that the drilling was located in a zone marginal to a potential copper-rich portion of the porphyry system.
Norte Zone: All five holes drilled in the Norte Zone prior to 2016 intersected porphyry-style mineralization. Hole 08-CBCN-022, one of the deepest holes drilled at Norte in 2008, returned values of 0.14% Cu with 0.19 g/t Au over 259 m and 08-CBCN-19 intersected 41.15 meters averaging 0.42 g/t gold and 0.27% copper to the end of the hole at 187.45 meters. Drilling in 2016 has been designed to test this zone to depth.
In addition to the above, several anomalous areas remain untested by drilling, including the Villa Rica Zone, a roughly 2.5 kilometer by 1 kilometer area defined by a strong north-northwest trending magnetic-chargeability high and associated copper-gold soil geochemical anomaly. More information on El Cobre is available on the Almadex website at http://www.almadexminerals.com/ASSETS/PROJECTS/Cobre.html.