Orestone Mining (TSX-V:ORS) is advancing exploration at its Francisca Gold-Silver Project in Salta City, northwestern Argentina.
The company has planned detailed soil sampling and mapping programs to expand the mineralised footprint at the Tom East and Kelly gold zones ahead of a drill program.
The 23km2 Francisca Gold Project sits approximately 80km northwest of Salta City, spanning a northwest strike length of 1,500m.
Along the trend, an oxide gold-silver system outcrops across multiple zones, including North, South, Kelly, and Tom East, featuring stockwork, vein, breccia, and epithermal vein systems.
Outcropping zones lie within a 500–1,000m-wide zone of strongly hornfels-altered sediments. The zone is defined by a 1,700m long by 500–700m wide IP chargeability anomaly of 7.9 millivolts per volt (mV/V) associated with gold-silver mineralisation.
Several larger IP chargeability anomalies, up to 20mV/V, indicate the potential for a buried sulphide-mineralised gold porphyry system.
During the recent phase one exploration program, hand-trench sampling to 1.3m depth yielded 4.45 gold per tonne gold (Au) over 21m in Trench 6B, within soft clay altered colluvium mixed with chalcedonic quartz.
Tom East sits approximately 120m northeast of the South gold zone and represents a potential epithermal vein system flanking the Francisca porphyry along a parallel northwest-trending structure.
Orestone has initiated detailed soil sampling across a 200m by 200m grid to further define this target.
Additional mapping and sampling continues at the Kelly gold zone, located 250m along strike of the South gold zone.
Reconnaissance geological mapping and rock chip sampling have defined an east-west-trending quartz-limonite vein stockwork zone within strongly sericite-altered hornfels sediments, over 50m wide, grading 0.37g/t Au and 2.15g/t silver.
The Kelly zone remains open to the north, south and west. The stockwork system is associated with northwest-trending silicified and sericite-altered porphyry dikes mapped over a 500m strike length, underlain by a 600m-wide IP chargeability anomaly exceeding 7.9 millivolts per volt.
“The Tom East discovery, highlighted by trench results of 4.45g/t gold over 21 metres, reinforces our belief that Francisca hosts a robust and extensive gold system extending along a 1.5km trend,” CEO David Hottman says.
Orestone Mining is a Canadian explorer advancing the Francisca gold-silver project in Argentina, with a focus on defining an oxide gold deposit amenable to open pit mining.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Orestone Mining
