Although detailed petrologic studies of veins in the Velardeña property have not been completed, individual deposits within the nearby Santa María dome have been studied in some detail and found to correspond to both shallow epithermal and deeper-seated mesothermal styles of mineralization. Epithermal veins, often displaying banded and open-space-filling quartz, occur at the Industria Mine where they are clearly distal to the main intrusive mass. The higher-level veins at Velardeña appear to be of this type. Many veins, especially at deeper levels in the Santa Juana and Terneras mines, are dominated by high modal percentages of coarse and fine grained, polymetallic sulfides, have little silicate gangue, and occupy a position within and proximal to intrusions and their thermally metamorphosed aureoles.

True epithermal veins occur at Velardeña, but at depth the majority of veins, breccias, and massive sulfide replacements are mesothermal in character, commonly contain arsenopyrite, and may be related to a deeper intrusive source.

Two main vein systems are present on the Velardeña property. The first is the northwest striking system found in the Santa Juana deposit, while the second is the east-west trending vein array which includes the Terneras, San Juanes, Roca Negra and San Mateo deposits.

Mineralization consists primarily of calcite-quartz veins with minor calc-silicate hosted (“skarn”) and massive sulfide replacement bodies. All mineraliza ........

The Project is planned to be operated as an exclusively underground operation.

The past extraction methods used at the Velardeña mines are mechanized cut and fill stoping and mechanized resuing cut and fill stoping. These methods are suitable for the steeply dipping veins found at the Project.

Resue Cut and Fill Stoping
Mechanized resue cut and fill stoping is used when a vein system contains high grade material in a narrow width, less than one meter in width for the Velardeña vein packages. The following sequence outlines the stope life:
- Resue stoping begins by accessing the vein from a development drift with an attack ramp that enters the vein at a near perpendicular angle. The slope of the attack ramps ranges from -27% (initial) to +27% (final) to keep the attack development length to a minimum.
- The excavation of the stope’s sublevel is driven away from the attack ramp intersection on vein. The sublevel is excavated using a horizontal resue technique; the footwall side of the face is excavated to one meter width for a single drill-round, followed by a slab waste round on the hanging wall side that brings the sublevel’s final width for the single drill round to +/-2.0 m. The single round horizontal resue technique is continued until the longitudinal boundaries of the process grade material is reached. Internal waste chutes encountered in the sublevel are excavated to the final sublevel width, +/-2.0 m, with a single drill round. The ........

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.