Tara Minerals, which has 100% interest in some 25.4k acres of prime mineralized territory (multiple gold and silver, as well as iron, lead, and zinc structures) at their Don Roman project down in the established La Reforma Mining District of Sinaloa State, Mexico, reported some great news today out of their state-side operations at the Ponderosa project (consisting of roughly 6.72k acres of patented and unpatented claims), as the Idaho Department of Lands okayed the company’s gold reclamation plan for mining surface ore from the site’s rich Black Diamond Vein.
The optioned claims contained within this project have previously mined and sampled veins, with outcrop returns in the neighborhood of 0.5 opt Au on average. Approval was actually granted early last week (August 13), but the process entailed plan review by state and federal agencies, with the requisite reclamation bond called for by the approval needed prior to commencement of commercial recovery operations. There looks to be abundant near-term potential here in the unmined veins, and TARM is well-positioned with the cash on hand to meet initial reclamation bond requirements.
Primary focus for TARM will be to complete their bulk sampling efforts on the several exposed veins ahead of aggregating material on-site, which will occur until such time as the targeted Rock Solid mill over in Nevada comes online. The approved plan covers the area where the company did a 3.5 tonne sample on the Black Diamond Vein outcrop, a lead kicked up in earlier channel sampling of exposed veins, the data for all of which has been parsed by three independent laboratories. The head grade assay for the plan area produced some exceptional returns, with consistently high gold and silver values in the range of 0.77 opt Au and 1 opt Ag.
The Dixie Mining District, where the Ponderosa project is located, has superb logistical, as well as legislative support for mining operations and the project also just so happens to sit right in the middle of a large (northeast trending) mineralized gold belt known as the Orogrande Shear Zone, which stretches some 35 by 50 miles and has seen mining activity for over five decades (starting with placer mining back in 1861). According to historic records, this belt has pumped out some 1M ounces of gold to date and TARM is lucky enough to have developed an exceptionally spry footprint here, having picked up the various claims which make up the project individually, allowing TARM to pick and choose which ones they want to keep or drop.
Further sampling of other veins in the area should produce some interesting results for TARM and the Ponderosa is shaping up nicely as a backdrop for the company’s sizeable primary footprint down in Mexico’s La Reforma Mining District, which has a three century history of mining activity. The Don Roman project also has the significant advantage of having a centralized mill facility and parallel processing circuits that can handle multiple types of mineralization, all on 100% owned land.
The company’s Mexico properties also contain the 17.4k acre Picacho project, which is 100% owned through the company’s Adit Resources subsidiary. Located just 75 miles south of the border in the prolific Northern Sierra Madre Gold Belt, Picacho is just 40 miles away from Yamana Gold’s projected 120k/year Mercedes production project and has nine gold-bearing veins over four mineralized target areas to explore (6.7 mile strike length). Picacho intercepts look really nice so far too (some 17.3k feet of drilling already completed in the roughly 2k foot vein system), with results like 15.6 g/t Au over 37 feet and 7.8 g/t Au over 30.8 feet prompting TARM to vet extant data on the project all the more rigorously in anticipation of their next step here.
Learn more about Tara Minerals Corp. at www.TaraMinerals.com
Let us hear your thoughts below:
