(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors - N.America) Orex Minerals Inc. (CVE:REX) said on Thursday it has received preliminary metallurgical test results for samples yielding up to 93% silver from the main zone of the Boleras silver deposit at the Sandra Escobar project in Durango, Mexico.
This project is being advanced by Orex under an option agreement with Canasil Resources Inc. (CVE:CLZ).
Results are now available for five samples, with increasing head grades, taken from across the main zone of the Boleras silver deposit. These results illustrate that recovery is grade dependent. A portion of the silver-bearing mineralogy is recoverable with leaching techniques, including hydrochloric acid (HCl), or sulphur dioxide (SO2) pretreatment before cyanidation, and a portion is refractory, requiring more investigation. An extrahigh-grade sixth sample was also prepared for mineralogical work and was tested by the same methods at the Kemetco Research Inc. laboratory.
Initial interpretation of the results suggests that there are three different hosts of silver: (1) a small amount of direct cyanide leachable silver (native silver and silver halides, cerargyrite and bromargyrite), (2) a varying amount of silver-bearing minerals leachable under pretreatment conditions (argentiferous manganese and iron oxides, pyrolusite and aurorite) and a portion within silicate minerals.
Geological comparisons have been drawn between the mineralization styles at Sandra Escobar and the La Pitarrilla project of Silver Standard Resources Inc., located 75 kilometres to the east. At La Pitarrilla, the Cordon deposit is also an iron- and manganese-oxide-hosted silver resource within a rhyolite host rock unit and is part of a much larger volcaniclastic complex. Structural and stratigraphic controls to mineralization are present in both locations. The Cordon deposit has been shown to be a peripheral deposit to a much larger sulphide silver and base metals resource at depth. The Boleras deposit at Sandra Escobar is geologically similar to the Cordon deposit at La Pitarrilla and may be analogous in forming part of a larger mineralized system.
"While the preliminary metallurgical results are not ideal for the Boleras main zone, the comparisons between Sandra Escobar geology and that of the neighbouring La Pitarrilla project are encouraging," said Orex's president, Gary Cope.
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