Las Santas

The Las Santas Project, formerly known as the Coiron Project, is centred at 31º 58’ 31” S and 70º 41’ 36” W in the Comuna de Salamanca district of Region IV in central-northern Chile. The Las Santas Project is located approximately 320km or four hours drive north of Santiago, the capital of Chile. Access is gained via the sealed Pan American Highway northward to the regional coastal centre of Los Vilas, thence inland via sealed roads through the township of Illapel and the regional administrative centre of Salamanca to the village of Tranquilla, located on the northern perimeter of the property. Access within the property is via a series of recently upgraded unformed gravel roads and tracks.

The Las Santas area lies toward the northern extremity of a belt dominated by copper-molybdenum porphyry systems, to the north of which porphyry and epithermal deposits are dominated by precious metals.

Structurally the Las Santas Project lies along a 70km northeast trending lineament that links the Los Pelambres porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit (and adjacent El Pachon in Argentina), located 15km northeast of Las Santas, with the El Bronce epigenetic gold deposit 17km to the southwest.

The principal economic target within the Las Santas Project is porphyry copper mineralisation. Unlike the nearby porphyry copper-molybdenum deposits at Los Pelambres and El Pachon, however, metallogenic evidence within the Las Santas Project suggests that a porphyry copper-gold association is more likely. Extensive potassic alteration within both monzonitic and granodioritic intrusives has been identified at two localities within the property to date, one of which includes extensive zones of disseminated copper mineralisation.

A secondary target includes the oxidised portions of copper-gold vein systems hosted by andesitic volcanics, associated with peripheral faulting and fracturing marginal to the Mount Tacho implosion breccia and intrusive complex. Several such vein systems have been identified within the Las Santas Project and these have been the subject of superficial artisanal mining activity over a long period of time.

The Company drilled 15 Reverse Circulation drill holes, which confirmed the existence of a low grade copper porphyry system.Further staged exploration and evaluation works has been postponed due to priority being given to other projects.