- Marifil Mines is focused on Argentinean mineral resources acquisitions
- Marifil Mines has revived its lithium exploration program in Argentina’s famed ‘Lithium Triangle’
- The company has 100 percent ownership of its Las Aguilas property, which has produced about 4.6 million metric tons of mineralized material containing economically significant cobalt values
- Gold is the chief economic focus at Marifil’s jointly-owned San Roque property, which is an advanced exploration-stage epithermal polymetallic deposit
Global headlines continue to pop up predicting crisis-level shortages of metals like lithium, cobalt and gold. Marifil Mines Ltd. (TSX.V: MFM) (OTCQB: MFMLF), a Vancouver, Canada-based mineral exploration company, is among those answering the call to help meet the world’s demand for these metals. Marifil Mines is engaged in the exploration, evaluation and acquisition of mineral-rich resource properties in Argentina, with its current focus chiefly on lithium, gold and cobalt exploration.
Lithium
In 2009, Marifil had an active lithium exploration program, and this program is now being revived by the company based on proprietary information previously gained. The company has three unexplored mine rights, known as cateos, and it is currently engaged in advanced negotiations for a purchase option on a fourth property that covers a portion of a salar currently being drilled by a competitor. This competitor has announced the drilling discovery of potentially economic lithium brines.
Each of these properties has proximal volcanic lithium source formations, and the company has a favorable geochemical database supporting these property acquisitions and is moving forward to amass a substantial lithium property portfolio in the Argentine Puna, within the ‘Lithium Triangle’.
Cobalt
Located in Argentina’s geographic center, Marifil’s Las Aguilas property lies in a region of good infrastructure. More than $15 million has been invested into the exploration of this property, which has involved 143 drill holes for 29,499 meters (96,757 feet). It is held by 359 hectares (887 acres) of patented mining claims that are 100 percent owned by the company, and the property is not subject to any private royalties. Marifil is seeking to leverage this cobalt-bearing property in a joint venture equity exchange for a lithium property, and, through that integration, to continue its resource development.
Geologically, the Las Aguilas property belongs to the magmatic segregation model for mineral deposits. Immiscible sulphide phase droplets in a silicate liquid are produced by sulfur-rich ultramafic plutons, and from this, nickel, copper and cobalt minerals crystalize as they settle to the base of the magma chamber. The Las Aguilas plutons intrude very old gneissic basement rock. Disseminated and semi-massive sulfides of base and precious metals occur within embayments at or near the bottoms of their host mafic/ultramafic intrusives.
Diamond core drilling totals 144 holes for more than 27,000 meters (88,560 feet), and various airborne and ground geophysical surveys have been completed. These are the subject of two Canadian National Instrument 43-101 reports, with one describing a 43-101 mineral resource.
Together, all resource classes total 4.6 million metric tons at 0.41 percent Ni, 0.41 percent Cu and 0.03 percent Co, with significant precious metals (PGM + Au & Ag) credits. This mineral resource by Canadian standards is not U.S. Security and Exchange Industry Guide 7 compliant, thus it can only be referred to as mineralized material. There are two deposits about 300 meters apart, and both are open to resource expansion by continued drilling.
Good metallurgical recoveries have been indicated by pilot scale flotation tests on a 30-tonne bulk sample obtained from a mine tunnel. Cobalt is currently estimated to be around 20 percent of the value of the economic minerals contained in the sulfide deposits.
Gold
The San Roque property, jointly owned by Marifil and Novagold Resources, is located in southeastern Argentina near the Atlantic coast, in an area that boasts excellent infrastructure and mining-friendly politics. Gold is the primary economic focus at the discovery, which is an advanced exploration-stage epithermal polymetallic deposit. The property is secured by 37,055 hectares (91,563 acres) of mine rights, 9,449 (23,348 acres) of which are patented and private royalty-free claims.
Marifil owns 51 percent of the San Roque property and is the current project operator. In excess of $7.5 million has been invested into assessing the discovery, with the majority of this investment going toward almost 16,000 meters (52,480 feet) of diamond core drilling as 108 holes. The continuation of drilling is imminent at the site.
A Canadian standard N.I. 43-101 resource has not yet been produced at the San Roque property, though it is clear to geoscientists that more than 100 million metric tons of earth is mineralized. Several deposits of significant gold-silver-indium-lead-zinc mineralization have been discovered on a four-kilometer-long zone. The mineralization occurs in old volcanic formations and metamorphic rocks beneath them. Geologists suspected it to be related to a large volcanic paleo-caldera and to be capping a deeper porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit.
Mineralization is manifested by multiple broad zones of narrow, sheeted and banded quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins and stockworks, as well as sulphide disseminations within brecciated volcanic rocks.
Drilling has outlined an area of semi-continuous Au-Ag-In-Pb-Zn mineralization covering approximately 0.3 x 0.9 km (0.2 x 0.6 miles) in the 33-zone. Individual drill holes have intersections averaging as high as 1.2 g/t Au, 10 g/t Ag, 39 g/t In, 0.4 percent Pb and 2.0 percent Zn over 120 meters (394 feet) (all assays are stated in metric tons).
Significant results have additionally been encountered in the 51-zone, located approximately 1.0 km (0.6 miles) to the southeast of the 33-zone, and in hole DDHMSR- 0034, located 1.9 km (1.2 miles) southeast of the 33-zone. That hole intersected 233 meters (764 feet) of 0.6 g/t Au, plus 11 g/t Ag, with just traces of base metals and includes a run of 2.3 g/t Au plus 43 g/t Ag over 35 meters (115 feet) at the top of the hole.
The winning combination presented by Marifil Mines positions the junior exploration company for great success in Argentina.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MarifilMines.com
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