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Location
The Conaviri project area is located in the Puno region of southern Peru. The property adjoins AngloGold's recently announced Rescatada gold discovery.
Title
Conaviri is a contiguous 3,100 hectare block made up of the "Tintaya 16/28/29/30/31" concessions. Monterrico has a 100% interest in the project.
Geology
The property is underlain by a Tertiary volcanic complex of pyroclastic breccias of andesitic composition and brecciated rhyolitic porphyries, dykes or flows.
Volcanic host rocks have been deformed into a broad open fold, with the hinge line trending along the major valley floor. The fold appears to have the aspect of a dome, with dips away from the central valley in all directions, and erosion producing a prominent circular feature observable from airphotos. Small intrusions of diorite and rhyolite porhyry dykes suggest the domal deformation may be a response to high level sub-volcanic intrusions along the N-S structure.
The principal structure controlling gold-silver mineralisation is this N-S, verging to N-E, left lateral fault. A secondary fault, of similar nature, is sub-parallel 600 meters to the east but is principally manifested in silicified structures in the overlying Miocene volcanics (Palca Group). A swarm of E-W lineaments, probably representing dilational structures, cut the Oligocene volcanics (Tacaza Group) and inpart the Miocene sequence.
High temperature advanced argillic alteration is found along structures that dissect pyritised and strongly brecciated volcanic rocks with pervasive, moderate to strong clay alteration, and abundant disseminated pyrite. This strong clay alteration forms a crude halo that partly encircles the gold zone.
History
No evidence of past mining is reported, however small workings and prospects are present in the region, producing ores from epithermal veins.
In 1995 Queenstake Resources identified this area from interpretation of TM imagery and staked an initial 1,000 hectare tenement. An additional 2,100 hectares were granted title in 1999 to consolidate the trend in mineralisation.
In March 1995 three samples were collected but given a low priority follow-up. Two short exploration campaigns were performed by Queenstake in late 1998 and early 1999. Geological mapping was conducted over the principal mineralised zone at a scale of 1:5,000. A total of 257 rock-chip samples were collected for analysis.
Eight samples only come from the breccia pipes and are representative chip, panel or channel samples. Assays from these breccias range from 1.1 - 3.5 g/t gold and 0.5 - 4 oz/t silver. An additional 12 petrographic samples and 185 samples for PIMA alteration studies were submitted for investigation.
In total, the Queenstake - Alamos Minerals joint venture spent approximately US$200,000 on the Conaviri project.
In 2001, Monterrico, through a subsidiary acquired the respective equity interests held by Queenstake (65.6%) and Alamos (34.4%).
Development
In April 2003, Newmont signed a Letter of Intent with Monterrico granting Newmont the option to acquire up to a 75% interest in the project. Upon executing the deal, the land position was increased to 7,700 hectares after Newmont merged six new claims into the tenement package.
Newmont undertook a diamond drill programme and completed 13 widely-spaced holes over the property, honouring their minimum obligation under the terms of the agreement. Newmont however has reported that it had encountered no significant gold-silver mineralisation consistent with their corporate objective to discover a bulk mineable target. As a consequence Newmont notified Monterrico that it wished to terminate and relinquish participation. Both companies exchanged Letters of Release, dated 16 April 2004, as an understanding that all contractual obligations have been satisfied.
All technical data has been transferred to Monterrico and the Company is evaluating results in order to propose any future program.
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