TSX.V: VIPR, OTC:VIPRF
Estimate includes Indicated Resources of
154,300 Oz Gold and 6,929,000 Oz Silver and Inferred Resources of
260,300 Oz Gold and 12,941,300 Oz Silver
- El Rubi Zone returns an
Indicated Resource of 6,179,000 tonnes grading 0.78 g/t gold and 35
g/t silver for 154,300 oz Au and 6,929,000 oz Ag, in addition to an
Inferred Resource of 3,255,000 tonnes grading 0.90 g/t gold and 36
g/t silver for 94,100 oz Au and 3,750,000 oz Ag.
- Con Virginia, El Oriental, Las Huatas and Las Huatas South
add an Inferred Resource of 6,622,000 tonnes grading 0.71 g/t gold
and 41 g/t silver for 152,200 oz Au and 8,739,800 oz Ag in open pit
category, and 227,000 tonnes grading 1.92 g/t gold and 62 g/t
silver for an additional 14,000 oz Au and 451,500 oz Ag in the
underground category.
- Gold and Silver Equivalents for Indicated resource equal
253,286 Oz Aueq OR 17,730,000 Oz Ageq at a ratio of 70:1.
- Gold and Silver Equivalents for Inferred resource equal
445,176 Oz Aueq OR 31,162,300 Oz Ag equivalent at a ratio of
70:1.
- Drilling and reconnaissance work continues to advance the
early-stage La Virginia project.
VANCOUVER, BC, May 3, 2021 /CNW/ - Silver Viper Minerals
Corp. (the "Company" or "Silver Viper")
(TSXV: VIPR) is pleased to announce the first NI 43-101 mineral
resource on the Company's La Virginia Silver-Gold Project in
Sonora, Mexico. The resource
estimate comprises five discrete deposits including the Company's
priority target, El Rubi. The mineral resource estimate is based
upon drilling completed by Silver Viper between 2018 and 2021 and
by previous operators between 2010 and 2013 and has an effective
date of May 1, 2021. The
resource estimate table is detailed below.
Deposit
|
Method
|
Class
|
Tonnes
|
Capped
Au (g/t)
|
Capped
Ag (g/t)
|
Au
Oz
|
Ag
Oz
|
El Rubi
|
Open pit
|
Indicated
|
6,179,000
|
0.78
|
35
|
154,300
|
6,928,900
|
Total
|
Open
Pit
|
Indicated
|
6,179,000
|
0.78
|
35
|
154,300
|
6,929,000
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
El Rubi
|
Open pit
|
Inferred
|
3,255,000
|
0.90
|
36
|
94,100
|
3,750,000
|
Con
Virginia
|
Open Pit
|
Inferred
|
3,279,000
|
0.66
|
36
|
69,500
|
3,837,800
|
El
Oriental
|
Open Pit
|
Inferred
|
91,000
|
1.47
|
28
|
4,300
|
81,900
|
Las Huatas
|
Open Pit
|
Inferred
|
3,169,000
|
0.76
|
47
|
77,300
|
4,749,900
|
Las Huatas
S
|
Open Pit
|
Inferred
|
83,000
|
0.40
|
26
|
1,100
|
70,200
|
Total
|
Open
pit
|
Inferred
|
9,877,000
|
0.78
|
39
|
246,300
|
12,489,800
|
Con
Virginia
|
Underground
|
Inferred
|
39,000
|
1.52
|
121
|
1,900
|
152,700
|
El
Oriental
|
Underground
|
Inferred
|
25,000
|
2.11
|
47
|
1,700
|
37,000
|
Las Huatas
|
Underground
|
Inferred
|
152,000
|
1.90
|
51
|
9,300
|
249,800
|
Las Huatas
S
|
Underground
|
Inferred
|
11,000
|
3.19
|
34
|
1,100
|
12,000
|
Total
|
Underground
|
Inferred
|
227,000
|
1.92
|
62
|
14,000
|
451,500
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
Indicated
|
6,179,000
|
0.78
|
35
|
154,300
|
6,929,000
|
Total
|
|
Inferred
|
10,104,000
|
0.80
|
40
|
260,300
|
12,941,300
|
(1)
|
Mineral Resources
which are not Mineral Reserves, do not have demonstrated economic
viability.
|
(2)
|
The estimate of
Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental,
permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or
other relevant issues.
|
(3)
|
The Inferred Mineral
Resource in this estimate has a lower level of confidence than that
applied to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted
to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority
of the Inferred Mineral Resource could be upgraded to an Indicated
Mineral Resource with continued exploration.
|
(4)
|
The Mineral Resources
were estimated using the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy
and Petroleum (CIM), CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and
Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines prepared by the CIM Standing
Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by the CIM
Council.
|
Silver Viper's President and CEO Steve
Cope states, "We are extremely pleased to achieve this
milestone for the project, it is a validation of our persistence
over the last three years and represents a huge step toward our
goal of defining a new gold-silver camp in an underexplored region
of Mexico. The drill is currently testing extensions of the
El Rubi mineralized zone and our field crews continue to advance
early-stage targets in preparation for drill testing later in the
year."
Steve Cope, President, CEO &
Director at Silver Viper Minerals, will be hosting two webinars
this week to discuss the maiden resource in collaboration with
Amvest Capital and Red Cloud.
The Amvest Capital webinar will be held on Tuesday May 4th @ 4:05 pm ET/ 1:05 pm
PT. To view the Amvest webinar live, please register here:
https://www.amvestcapital.com/webinar-directory/silverviper050421
The Red Cloud webinar will be held on Wednesday May 5th @ 2:00 pm ET / 11:00 am
PT. To view the Red Cloud webinar live, please register
here: https://www.redcloudfs.com/rcwebinar-vipr/
Replays of both webinars will also be available after the live
broadcast.
The Mineral Resource Estimate was completed by independent
consultant Dr. Gilles Arseneau
P.Geo. of ARSENEAU Consulting Services Inc. The resources
were estimated using three-dimensional block model software. All
blocks for the Las Huatas, Con Virginia and El Rubi were estimated
by ordinary kriging while all other deposits were estimated by
ID2. Gold and silver grades within the mineralized
domains were estimated in four successive passes for the Las Huatas
and El Rubi domains and in a single pass for all other domains. The
first pass considered a relatively small search ellipsoid, while
the second and third pass search ellipsoids were larger. Pass four
was restricted in inform blocks within the deposits, near drill
holes that had not been estimated in the three previous passes.
Search parameters were generally set to match the correlogram
parameters but also designed to capture sufficient data to estimate
a grade in the blocks. All grades were capped on 1.5 m composites and ranged from 3 to 15 g/t for
gold and 50 to 1,000 g/t for silver.
Mineral resources are reported on a US dollar equivalent cut-off
of $US20 (equivalent to a cut-off
grade of 0.38 g/t gold OR 28.3 g/t silver) for open pit and
$US100 (equivalent to a cut-off grade
of 1.88 g/t gold OR 141.4 g/t silver) for underground resources.
Reasonable prospect of potential economic extraction is determined
by restricting the potentially open pit accessible resource inside
a Whittle optimized pit shell based on $US
1,650/oz of gold and $US 22/oz
of silver and recoveries of 94% for gold and 90% for silver,
overall pit slopes of 50 degrees and a total operating cost of
$US 20. Underground reasonable
prospect of potential economic extraction is determined by
assigning a cut-off of $US 100 to
contiguous blocks within a maximum 200
m of the pit surface and a maximum vertical depth of
250 m.
Blocks were classified as indicated mineral resource for the El
Rubi deposit if estimated during pass one with at least two drill
holes with an average distance of 50
m or during pass two and informed by at least three drill
holes within an average distance of less than 100 m. All other estimated blocks were classified
as inferred mineral resource.
Geology
The La Virginia Project is an early-stage exploration property
situated within a range of mountains in the Sierra Madre
Occidental. The project is largely underlain by rocks of the
Lower Volcanic Sequence uplifted and exposed by basin and range
faulting. Mineralized showings occur largely within a
kilometre-wide corridor aligned to the north-northwest regional
trend defining the range. This corridor, as part of the regional
fabric, extends for the length of the project. The Las
Huatas, Con Virginia (includes La Virginia) and El Oriental
deposits are located within a 3.0 kilometre portion of the trend.
El Rubi is located 2.5 kilometres north of this group of
deposits.
Outcropping mineralization on the project was first associated
with steeply dipping dacite dykes more resistant to erosion than
the country rock, forming low ridges on the hillsides. At Con
Virginia, Las Huatas and El Oriental areas, mineralized veining has
been shown to have exploited the same structures as the previously
emplaced dykes. Gold and silver mineralization is often found
along the contact zones of said dykes, hosted by andesite wall rock
or by the dykes themselves in the form of thin quartz vein
stockworks or breccias. Width and tenor of mineralization increase
in areas where the hosting structure flexes or within dilationary
openings formed by jogs between adjacent faults. This is apparent
at both outcrop and project scales.
El Rubi deposit is situated on a mesa roughly 2.5 kilometres in
diameter, immediately north of an east-west, fault-controlled
canyon which separates and offsets it laterally from the main block
hosting the other deposits. At El Rubi, mineralized
structures remain steeply dipping, but demonstrate a north-west
strike, indicating a flexure in the north-northwest structural
trend. East-west, north-south and northwest-southeast
trending faulting at this location has resulted in the formation of
local blocks with vertical or lateral relative movement.
The geology of the El Rubi plateau is represented by a gently
eastward-dipping volcanic sequence. Rhyolitic lapilli tuff on
the western side of the mesa is overlain by a mixed volcanic
package of andesitic composition. The andesite package
reaches up to 300 m in thickness, and
contains weakly porphyritic andesites interbedded with
volcaniclastic and agglomeratic andesitic phases, further overlain
by uniform feldspar-phyric andesite.
Mineralization at El Rubi has been intercepted by drilling over
a strike length of 500 m and to a
vertical depth of 300 m and
represents a highly structurally controlled network of steeply
dipping quartz veining and vein breccias. Strongest mineralization
on the project to date has been encountered along the El Rubi
structure, a northwest trending, fault-controlled, often silicified
breccia/quartz stockwork zone which dips steeply to the
east-northeast. The El Rubi structure marks the eastern
extent of mineralization as modelled in this area. An
additional zone of broad, low to medium grade silver-gold
mineralization occupies the footwall of the El Rubi structure,
extending up to 200 m west of the El
Rubi trend. In some cases, the mixed andesite package in
particular hosts broad zones of fine quartz stringers forming weak
stockworks tens of metres in width. Silver Viper refers to
this broad stockwork zone as the "Western Zone" represented by
drill intercepts such as those in LV20-245 and LV20-284 (see News
Releases dated August
26th, 2020 and March
1st, 2021 respectively).
Drilling at El Rubi has targeted the mineralized structures from
several orientations, and the use of oriented drill core in four
holes has assisted the interpretation used in constructing the
model.
About the Project
La Virginia is located 220 kilometres east-northeast of
Hermosillo, Sonora and is
prospective for low-sulphidation epithermal precious metal
mineralization. The Property and historical exploration
database were acquired by way of option agreements made with two
distinct parties. Gold and silver mineralization at La Virginia
occurs within breccias, veins and stockworks, hosted primarily by
andesitic volcanics, often in close spatial association to, or
cross-cutting pre-mineral dacite dykes and controlled by fractures
and faults that define the regional structural trend. Silver
Viper's reconnaissance program identified key targets and trends
which are of primary interest and subsequently filed strategic
reductions in claims to attain the current project surface area of
6,882 hectares.
At the completion of the 2020 phase of work at La Virginia,
Silver Viper had completed a total of 100 drill holes for a
combined meterage of 27,021 metres across the project. Exploration
drilling continues at La Virginia using a single diamond drill
supplied by Hermosillo-based drill
contractor, Globexplore Drilling Corp. Drilling by the
Company to date builds upon a sizeable database of recent
historical work including 52,635 metres of drill core from 188
diamond drill holes, generated by the efforts of previous operators
between 2010 and 2013. Silver Viper is expanding upon this work by
continuing exploration north and south into prospective untested
ground.
QA/QC
Analytical results of drilling intercepts reported by Silver
Viper represent samples of halved HQ or NQ2 diameter diamond drill
core submitted directly to Bureau Veritas, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. Samples were
crushed, split and pulverized as per Bureau Veritas method
PRP70-250, then analyzed for gold by lead collection fire assay
fusion on a 30 gram split with AAS finish, and for a multi-element
suite including silver by multi-acid digestion with ICP-ES/MS
finish. Samples triggering precious metal over-limit thresholds of
10g/t Au or 200g/t Ag were re-tested by lead collection fire assay
fusion with gravimetric finish (method code FA530. Silver
Viper monitors QA/QC using commercially sourced standards and
locally sourced blank materials inserted within the sample sequence
at regular intervals.
Silver Viper has possession of all current and historical
diamond drill core and sample pulps as generated on the property
since 2010. The Company has conducted a review of the
historical drilling data by physical checks of existing drill pads
and drill core and verified the tenor of mineralized intervals by
portable XRF on core and sample pulps. Silver Viper has further
confirmed the veracity of historical data by diamond drilling of
ten core holes at Las Huatas, Con Virginia, and the northern
extension of El Oriental target areas. This work confirms the
accuracy of location and ranges of mineralization as indicated by
the 2010-2013 database.
Dale Brittliffe, P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration, is the
'Qualified Person' under National Instrument 43-101 and has
reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information
contained in this news release. Ongoing verification of scientific
and technical information is achieved by direct involvement in the
exploration work, the most recent site visit was conducted in
November 2020.
About the Company
Silver Viper Minerals Corp. is a Canadian-based junior mineral
exploration company focused on precious metals exploration in the
northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. The Company currently
operates the La Virginia Gold-Silver Project. Silver Viper has 100%
ownership of the La Virginia concessions acquired from the most
recent operator, Pan American Silver Corp., and has an option to
acquire a 100% interest in the Rubi-Esperanza group of claims
internal to those concessions. Silver Viper is under management
provided by the Belcarra Group, which is comprised of highly
qualified mining professionals.
On behalf of the board of directors,
Steve Cope
President and CEO
Forward Looking Information
Information set forth in this press release contains
forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's
current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are
not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all
forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual
performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many
of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include,
among other things: risks and uncertainties relating to exploration
and development, the ability of the Company to obtain additional
financing, the need to comply with environmental and governmental
regulations, fluctuations in the prices of commodities, operating
hazards and risks, competition and other risks and uncertainties,
including those described in the Company's financial statements
available on www.sedar.com. Accordingly, actual and future events,
conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates,
beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the
forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable
securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to
publicly update or revise forward-looking information.
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES
PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX
VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR
ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
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SOURCE Silver Viper Minerals Corp.