Rediscovering a Golden Age
Overview 
Historical mining reports on Sahuayacan report production of over a million dollars ($25.5 million 2008 dollars) in gold-silver bullion in the early 1900s before being shut down because of the Mexican Revolution, Pan American's Sahuayacan property is believed to have significant potential in the Sierra Madre or Barrancas regions. This exciting property is less than 20 kilometers from Gammon Gold's Ocampo mine, which has confirmed gold of 4.5 million ounces and annual expected production of 270,000 ounces gold-equivalent. A History of Untapped RichesFirst open in the early 1900s, the Santo Niño mine — which is located on this property — operated for five years, producing over a million dollars ($25.5 million 2008 dollars) in gold-silver bullion, with a silver to gold ratio of 40:1. Unfortunately, mining was interrupted and operations shut down due to the Mexican Revolution. Since that time, this long forgotten region has had no modern drilling, other than for six holes drilled by Cominco. A second mine known as Santa Teresa, located one kilometer to the south, was also in operation at that time, and was also forced to close during the revolution. Reconnaissance and detailed mapping (1:1,000) programs in the Sahuayacan project have identified four significant drilling targets: Santo Niño, La Cumbre, Cerro Cacho and Santa Teresa. The current drilling program is mainly focused to test the Santo Niño and La Cumbre mineralized zones, two of the most attractive targets at Sahuayacan. To date a total of 735.00 meters have been drilled in four diamond drillholes in the Santo Niño vein-structure (SDH-1, SDH-2, SDH-3 and SDH-4) and 1 diamond Drillhole (SDH-5, in progress) in La Cumbre mineralized area. Location of Sahauyacan ProjectClick to enlarge   Sahuayacan Gold - Silver ProjectDrilling Results July 24, 2007 Pan American Goldfields' is pleased to announce the latest drilling results from the Sahuayacan Gold-Silver project in the Moris District, Chihuahua, Mexico. Sahuayacan is a classic low-sulphidation gold-silver epithermal district with the mineralization being controlled mainly by north-northwest and northwest striking structures. Mineralization is contained in high-grade mineralized-shoots located along a 4 km mineralized northwest trending structures known as Santo Niño and Santa Teresa. The last area tested as part of the recently completed drilling program at Sahuayacan was the Santa Teresa target, where two drillholes (SDH-11 and SDH-12) were completed. The objective of those two drillholes has been attempting to extend areas higher grade mineralization and further defining the margins of the Sahuayacan mineralized system to the south and southeast of the project area. To date we have received the assay results from the two drillholes collared on the Santa Teresa target. The drillhole SDH-12 has intersected a high grade mineralized zone, consisting of 7.5 meters with 56.01 g/t Au and 283.22 g/t Ag The following are the assay intercepts from the Santa Teresa structure:
The highly mineralized area intersected by SDH-12 has been developed along the contact between a shale sequence and a volcano-sedimentary package and apparently spatially associated to a rhyolite-dacite intrusive. Surface mapping and drilling results are suggesting that the higher gold values tend to cluster at certain areas along the Santo Niño and the Santa Teresa vein structures with intervening areas of low gold grades. The cluster of high gold values indicate the development of mineralized shoots within the extensive Sahuayacan system as evidenced by the intercepts from the SDH-1 in the Santo Niño vein (March 13, 2007 press release, where intersections includes 7.50 meters with 2.56 g/t Au and 8.0 meters with 2.98 g/t Au) and the SDH-12 along the Santa Teresa vein. The present drilling results and especially the one obtained from SDH-12 are providing three main outcomes that highlight the potential of the Sahuayacan mineralized system:
Click to enlarge  The Sahuayacan mineralized system is extensive in terms of known mineralization and based on the drilling results evaluation has the potential to contain and economically attractive mineralized system. Following the evaluation of the drilling results, Pan American's exploration team will further evaluate the Sahuayacan system by reverse circulation drilling at La Cumbre and diamond drilling at Santa Teresa and Santo Niño to test the veins. This program will help to define the potential volume and grade of a large portion of the mineralized veins systems at Sahuayacan. Diamond Drilling Exploration Program Results Gold & Silver Sahuayacan Project July 24, 2007 Click here to download Excel spreadsheet (XLS) [112 KB] Sample Data from 115 Samples Gold & Silver Sahuayacan Project July 22, 2007 Click here to download Excel spreadsheet (XLS) [69 KB] Sahuayacan ProjectDrilling Update to 12th March 2007 Reconnaissance and detailed mapping (1:1,000) programs in the Sahuayacan project have identified four significant drilling targets: Santo Niño, La Cumbre, Cerro Cacho and Santa Teresa. The current drilling program is mainly focused to test the Santo Niño and La Cumbre mineralized zones, two of the most attractive targets at Sahuayacan. To date a total of 735.00 meters have been drilled in four diamond drillholes in the Santo Niño vein-structure (SDH-1, SDH-2, SDH-3 and SDH-4) and 1 diamond Drillhole (SDH-5, in progress) in La Cumbre mineralized area. To date we have received the assay results from the first two drillholes SDH-1 and SDH-2 which were collared along the Santo Niño mineralized vein. The drillhole SDH-1 intersected two zones of gold mineralization over the 165.05 meters drilled in this hole, including 7.50 meters with 2.56 g/t Au and 8.00 meters with 2.98 g/t Au or 11.00 meters with 2.24 g/t Au. Drillhole SDH-2 has not returned encouraging assay results. However, some anomalous gold zones have been identified. Geological and structural mapping survey along the Santo Niño vein has identified a NE structure that is displacing the mineralized zone. Current field investigations are aimed to define in more detail the structural setting on this part of the mineralized vein-structure. The two mineralized zones intersected by SDH-1 are hosted by volcaniclastic rocks interbedded with several andesitic tuffs and breccias. The mineralized zone intersected from 65.00 to 72.50 meters is characterized by multiple stages of hydrothermal activity exhibiting quartz veinlets and quartz stockwork mineralization with moderate to weak argillic alteration (illite-kaolin) and propylitic alteration characterized by epidote + chlorite + calcite. The second mineralized zone intersected from 96.40 to 107.50 meters in the SDH-1 is mainly characterized by a weak to moderate silicification exhibiting quartz and calcite veinlets. Areas of dissemination of pyrite as fine crystals are common in the mineralized zones. In addition, the low values of silver may suggest that we still are high in the mineralized system and is expected that silver (plus some other base metals) content may increase with depth and in consequence the Ag:Au ratio. A summary of the assay results of the two mineralized zones intersected by the SDH-1 is provided in the table below.
These results have been prepared under the supervision of Barry Quiroz, MSc., Pan American's VP of Exploration. He has the expertise and authority to verify the authenticity and validity of this data. The qualified person who has reviewed this data is Dana C. Durgin, MSc. Economic Geology. He is a Certified Professional Geologist (CPG #10364) with the American Institute of Professional Geologists, and a Registered Professional Geologist in Wyoming (PG-2886). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||