Property Description
Oremex recently announced the acquisition of 100 percent interest in the Cuyoaco Gold and Base Metal Property (“Cuyoaco Property”) located in the old mining camp, formerly known as the Talpizaco-Tateno Mining District, in the north-central portion of the State of Puebla, Mexico. On the property, sedimentary rocks (with limestone predominating) are intruded by a diorite stock and numerous related dykes. The Cuyoaco Property consists of two mineral concessions covering 643 hectares, encompassing the former Santa Elena, Santo Nino, Magistral and California-Durazno Mines. At the Santa Elena and Santo Nino zones, coarse metallic gold and electrum in calcite stringers is associated with narrow diorite dikes and adjacent skarns. Gold values from underground workings range up to 3 grams per tonne (“gpt”). At the Magistral and California-Durazno workings, copper-gold-lead-zinc anomalies suggest the presence of a large porphyry copper-gold system. The Cuyoaco Property has a history of small production and is considered to be in the earliest stages of exploration.
The Cuyoaco Property acquisition agreement provides that the mineral concessions will be held by Oremexico S.A. de C.V., a wholly-owned Mexican subsidiary of Oremex Resources Inc. Details of the acquisition are provided in the Company’s news release dated November 20, 2007. This acquisition is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange.
Location & Accessibility
The Cuyoaco Property is located approximately 165 kilometres northeast of Mexico City and 90 kilometres northeast of Puebla de Zaragoza, the capital city of the State of Puebla. Access to the property from Mexico City is southeast via paved highway 150 to the city of Puebla and then northeast on to paved highway 129 to the town of Oriental, then north through the town of Libres to Federal Road No. 125 to the village of Cuyoaco and then north by dirt road for 6 kilometres to the project. Cuyoaco is a small agricultural community, located on the Puebla-Nautla Federal Road No. 125 at kilometre 107. Road distance from Mexico City to Cuyoaco is 233 kilometres, approximately 4 hours driving time. The property is easily accessible year round.
Recent Activity
An independent NI 43-101 compliant Technical Report was prepared by independent consultant Norm Tribe, P.Eng., dated July 15, 2006. Three random chip samples were cut by Mr. Tribe in the Santa Elena Adit and assayed by ALS Chemex in North Vancouver to provide verification of the presence of gold in the system. The report recommends a two phase exploration program; with an initial phase of work beginning with trenching followed by diamond drilling to assess the project.
Topography & Geology
Topography
The Cuyoaco Property is located in the central part of the Sierra Madre physiographic province in the Llanuras Altas (high plain) subdivision. Elevations on the property average 2,600 metres and range from 2,200 to 3,200 metres. The property has numerous workings scattered over an area of 25 square kilometres in the Talpizaco Mountain Range. The Talpizaco Range is steep to severe topographically, but the basin in which it sits is broad, flat and completely under cultivation. The skarns and hornfels, being resistant to erosion, have formed the backbone of the range in this area.
The infrastructure is good with the national power grid coming to within 1 kilometre of the property. Although the topography where the mineralized outcrops occur is steep, there are extensive flat lands close to the project for possible heap leach pads or other mining related facilities. Water is described as close and available; however, the Company has not confirmed water sources. The weather in this part of Mexico is mild; and even in summer, the altitude moderates the weather into a very pleasant climate. The late summer may produce severe rain storms, which should not have an effect on the property as all the areas marked for future exploration programs are well above the valley floor. Lodging and most other facilities are available at Libres, 15 kilometres south of Cuyoaco on Federal Road 125.
Geology
Regional Geological Setting – Cuyoaco is one of the copper-silver-gold systems in Jurassic-Cretaceous limestones in the eastern Sierre Madre. Two outstanding properties in this setting are the San Martin and the Santa Maria de la Paz. The regional geology is dominated by Jurassic, limey, thinly bedded sediments intruded by a complex multi-phase dioritic stock. The diorite stock has a rough “H” shape with the central branch, trendidng NW, being 1.0 to 3.0 kilometres wide and trending SW, the limbs being 0.5 to 3 kilometres long.
Local Geology – The diorite stock is encircled by a metasomatic contract zone of endo-skarns and exo-skarns with hornfels and marbles. Several roof pendants sit near the middle of the intrusive. Mineralization is located in the skarns and hornfels adjacent to and near the intrusives. Several diorite dikes, located along the axes of the roof pendants appear to be a focus for the gold mineralization and good values were indicated in most of the small fracturing in and near to these dikes. The skarns and hornfels are in contact zones around the stock and form roof pendants within the intrusive.
Mineralization There are two distinct types of mineralization at the Cuyoaco Property. The mineralized zones are defined by the old workings, the shafts and adits used by the early workers. They are:
- Intrusive hosted copper gold mineralization at the California-Durazno Zone; and
- Skarn hosted copper gold mineralization at the Lincon and Magistral Zones and hornfels and diorite dike gold zones at Santa Elena and Santo Nino.
The California-Durazno Zone is an area of copper-silver-gold mineralization which occurs in an intrusive hosted zone, appearing along the axes of the diorite stock roughly in line with the axes of the syncline along which the stock intruded. The copper-silver-gold mineralization is mainly chalcopyrite with minor pyrite and traces of galena and sphalerite. There are five documented showings on the California Zone.
The Lincon Zone is a contact metasomatic skarn zone adjacent to the intrusive on the northeast side of the central bar of the “H” shaped diorite stock. The Lincon Zone is an area of copper-silver-gold mineralization which occurs in a skarn hosted zone, appearing along the contact with the diorite stock. The copper-silver-gold mineralization is mainly chalcopyrite with minor pyrite and traces of galena and sphalerite. The Magistral Zone is also a contact metasomatic skarn zone. It is adjacent to the stock on the west side and covers most of the southern half of the contact between the diorite stock and the sediments. It is as much as 250 metres thick and contains at least 13 documented showings.
The Santa Elena and Santo Nino Zones are diorite dike and hornfels hosted gold deposits. The gold mineralization is more distant from the intrusive and at this time is known to be associated with the narrow diorite dikes and more siliceous hornfels. The gold occurs as coarse free gold with some electrum with calcite micro veining in the shears and fractures and is associated with silicification, hydrothermal chlorite and minor pyrite. Within the central part of this zone are four adits, the Santa Elena #1 through #4. One hundred metres to the east, a second line of showings called the Santo Nino and the Obra Grande have several pits and two short adits. This zone is classified as a gold prospect and is associated with a cluster of small to medium sized diorite dikes, typically less than 20 metres in width. These dikes are surrounded by hydrothermally altered sedimentary rocks mainly limestones, siltstones and shales. These sediments are heavily altered by heat and fluids believed to have originated from the dikes. These hydrothermal fluids contained mainly silica with small amounts of iron, sulphur and gold. The limestones were heavily altered by the introduced silica to hornfels or, closer to the stock, skarn. Rocks with most silt or shale are mainly altered to hornfels.
The gold mineralization appears in small micro fractures predominantly at right angles to the dike and dipping steeply to the north. These micro fractures are filled with calcite, pyrite and free gold.
History & Previous Workings
There are a total of 31 documented workings on the property. All are inactive and many are believed to be from the first Spanish in the area, during the 16th century. There are no written records of who worked the old mines at Cuyoaco. Local knowledge suggests that it was originally developed by The Teziutlan Copper Company, a British mining company, who, in 1862, was operating the Aurora Mine at the Aire Libre-Taziutlan Mining District north of Cuyoaco. Early production from the Fundicion, Magistral, California and La Paz claims which now make up the northwestern part of the property was mainly copper ore in skarns at the sedimentary-intrusive contacts.
The Santa Elena and Santo Nino workings are believed to be the most recently developed in the area. The old mill site foundations are located directly below the Santa Elena #4 adit and together with a small tailings fan in the cornfield below, are testament to a small production from the Santa Elena adits. Old mine workings consist of 12 adits, numerous trenches and a few shallow shafts.
The Cuyoaco district has escaped the interest of the major mining companies and very little modern prospecting has been done at the property. Most recent exploration on the property, under the direction of and financed by the claims owner Sr. Francisco Crespo through a grant from the Mexican Government, concentrated on drilling out the Santa Elena Gold Skarn deposit. The drilling was designed to test these known deposits and extend them downward into the zone at depth. Work consisted of two lines of geochemistry using the Mobile Metal Ion method for trace elements and drilling one drill hole through one of the several dike skarn targets on the property. Preliminary estimates based on channel sampling in four adits established that the gold values in and near the dikes averaged 2.26 gpt gold over an area of 6,277 square metres.
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