Taviche Project

The Taviche Project is comprised of three property concessions totaling 52,340 hectares: West Taviche, East Taviche and Alma Delia. The least known project area is Alma Delia where only precursory prospecting has taken place, chiefly in the area of the south extension of the Higo Blanco prospect. Work in 2011 will focus on the more advanced mineralized gold-silver prospects in the West and East concessions.

The San Jose mining district offers a wide number of ore types but primary targets sought after by Aura Silver are epithermal silver (gold) deposits. Surface exposures on both concessions are dominated by hydrothermal breccias with lesser amounts of massive to banded quartz-chalcedony veins. Historical mining occurred intermittently along the vein systems and appears to have been located at structural intersections of cross-cutting veins. Samples from the old mine dumps commonly contain in excess of 5 g/t gold (Au) and 200 g/t silver (Ag) with values up to 94.7 g/t Au and 1,845 g/t Ag. Fortuna Silver Mines is developing their San Jose Project and Aura Silvers' exploration on the West Taviche concession will focus on testing veins flanking the mine site. The Company believes that the ore veins of Fortuna's developing mine may extend onto its ground.

The major target on the East Concession will be the Higo Blanco zone where high-grade strataform, silver has been located in jasperoids as well as structural hosted gold mineralization which the Company believes is increasing in grade with depth. Deeper drilling to locate an epithermal precious metal deposit will be the target for 2011 drill efforts. Prospecting for potential copper - porphyry mineralization and prospecting of numerous untested vein systems is ongoing and will continue in concert with the drilling.



West Taviche Concession

Drilling within the West Taviche concession will concentrate initially on the La Noria prospect. This prospect lies only 2 kilometers west of the San Jose Mine, a parallel vein system to the ore veins under development by Fortuna Silver Mines.

The La Noria vein system is comprised of two north-south trending veins between 250 and 400 metres apart connected by NW trending en echelon-style extensional veins. The strike extent is unknown but is at least 600m for the West Noria vein and a kilometer for the East vein set. Both disappear along strike under soil cover. The vein complex consists of banded quartz-chalcedony veinlets, vein breccias, sections of silicification up to 20 meters wide and marked by several small pits and one historical shaft. Samples from dumps for the West veins contained up to 17.1 g/t Au and 751 g/t Ag and for the East vein up 4 g/t Au and 210 g/t Ag.

Drilling across the East Noria vein in 2007 by the Company identified a significant mineralized and altered package that ranged from 15.5 to 126 metres in dimension. All intervals are defined by strong quartz-(adularia)-pyrite and quartz-illite pyrite alteration with widespread intervals of moderate to strong, multistage quartz-sulphide-adularia veinlets as well as hydrothermal vein breccias up to 8 metres wide. Gold, and locally silver, values are anomalous across all three zones and range up to 1.32 g/t Au and 77 g/t Ag.

In comparison to Fortuna's San Jose mine surface exposures above their emerging Bonanza and Trinidad deposits are mostly covered by alluvium but further to the south, the vein wallrock is less silicified than seen at La Noria but contains significant hydrothermal breccias and quartz vein material. The increased silica flooding observed at La Noria implies less erosion into the hydrothermal system. Many epithermal alteration models indicate that a "silica cap", or at least silicification, is typically present above the precious metal environment.

Surface rock sampling has identified significant differences in the surface geochemistry between the La Noria prospect and the San Jose mine. At La Noria, surface vein and breccia samples are significantly enriched in arsenic and antimony relative to the surface samples at the San Jose mine area. In contrast, gold and silver values at San Jose are significantly more enriched at the surface thus geochemical zoning models suggest that the level of erosion is greater at the San Jose area. In the subsurface, alteration across the East Noria vein system is strong and consists quartz-pyrite-illite-adularia. The close association between adularia and "bonanza"-style gold-silver deposits formed by ore fluid boiling has been well documented worldwide. Adularia has also been documented to form metasomatic alteration halos adjacent to and/or above gold deposits or as 'leakage' along open cracks, i.e. quartz-adularia veinlets, away from gold-silver deposits. At the San Jose deposit, adularia is a common gangue component. The presence of adularia is extremely significant therefore and suggests that the 'boiling' horizon may be in close proximity to the levels tested in 2007 by the Company along the East vein. The style of mineralization observed in the East Noria drill holes is dominated by broad zones of multi-staged quartz-sulphide-adularia stockwork and, more locally, hydrothermal breccias. A similar style of broad, diffuse packages of quartz stockwork has been identified at the San Jose mine but contains discrete quartz-sulphide-carbonate veins up to several metres wide. The foregoing comparisons support the possibility that similar gold-silver vein deposits are present along the La Noria vein system but at greater depths than observed at the San Jose mine's Trinidad and Bonanza deposits. Deeper drilling will commence in early 2011.



La Noria Project, Oaxaca, Mexico (PDF - 4.7MB)


East Taviche Concession - North

The East Taviche project area consists of a broad zone of veins over an area measuring roughly ~7.5 km by 2.5 km. Work to date has consisted of both reconnaissance type mapping over the concession and detailed mapping over specific areas. Approximately 15 quartz-carbonate-sulfide veins exceeding 500 metres in length have been documented with a cumulative strike length in excess of 9 kilometres. The known veins are generally less than two metres wide but can range up to several metres in width and are mostly hosted by massive andesite porphyry flows.

Mineralogically, these veins are similar to those observed in the West Taviche concession in that they locally host up to several percent base metal sulphides, are cross cut by an iron-bearing carbonate stage and have silver to gold ratios in excess of 100. The highest silver and gold grades identified to date are in a fine-grained, massive to weakly banded light to dark gray quartz with minor fine-grained pyrite, galena and sphalerite.www.aurasilver.com
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Nearly all of these veins have at least some minor workings developed along them with levels developed up to 100 metres below the surface. Preliminary investigations and sampling have revealed significant silver and gold values in dump grab samples. Statistical analyses of the geochemical data reveal a clear zoning pattern across the district (north to south) whereby: gold decreases to the south; silver remains relatively constant; Arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb) increase sharply; and base metals (Cu-Pb-Zn) decrease. These trends are consistent with the northern veins being more proximal to a thermal center and that the southern veins are higher in the epithermal vertical zonation model.

Many of the vein structures have yet to be sampled in detail with some not sampled at all. Prospecting of these veins will be ongoing throughout 2011.

East Taviche Project, Oaxaca, Mexico (PDF - 3.6MB)


East Taviche Concession - South

In early 2007 silver mineralization at the Higo Blanco project was discovered. Following detailed surface trenching, mapping and an induced polarization geophysical survey several drill campaigns have been carried out building up a near-surface, high grade silver zone.

For over 25 kilometers, a NW-trending structural corridor hosting widespread silver and gold mineralization has been identified to the southeast from the historical Main Taviche district into the Higo Blanco project area. This corridor continues for several additional kilometres south to the Burro and Ciruela mines. The work completed to date in the Higo Blanco project area has been focused on this same NW-trending structural corridor referred to as the Mezcal structure. At Higo Blanco, this structural zone contains quartz sulfide veins, vein breccias and quartz stockwork within quartz-pyrite-illite altered Tertiary volcanic silicified Cretaceous limestone. Two distinct, but most likely genetically related, mineral assemblages have been identified: Au - As - (Sb) in the volcanic rocks and Ag - Sb - (Au) in the silicified limestone breccias. The Mezcal structure is viewed as a potentially important conduit for both magmatic and hydrothermal events, including the metal-bearing fluids, into the limestone and volcanic packages. Significant gold and silver grades have been identified over large areas along this structure and appear to increase at lower elevations.

Mineralogically, silver is associated with pyrargyrite which occurs as fine disseminations, clots (<1cm) and hairline veinlets crosscutting the silicified limestone breccias, hydrothermal breccias and volcanic rocks. Pyrargyrite bearing quartz veinlets have been observed crosscutting the Au-As event, i.e. Mezcal-type mineralization and, therefore, post-dates it. The jasperoid horizons, which cap the limestone throughout much of the Higo Blanco project, contain widespread stibnite in the higher elevations; below about 1,650m ASL, stibnite (antimony) is rarely observed.

In 2009 and 2010 several drill campaigns were carried out and subsequently reported in press releases. Drilling to date has identified two important geologic settings for the identification of a mineral resource: the Mezcal fault/vein complex and the Piedra del Sapo system. A summary of significant silver and gold intercepts in drill holes is available under 'Investors / Presentations'. (View here)

High-grade silver mineralization has been identified along the Mezcal structure in close proximity to its upper contact with an overlying volcaniclastic unit; select drill intercepts from this zone are presented above. Several of these intercepts are spatially associated with a variably silicified 'phreatic' breccia hosting both pumice and rhyolite fragments suggesting a deep-seated conduit for the silver and gold-bearing fluids. An example of this is Hole HBET-16-09 which encountered 11.95 metres of 475 g/t Ag in silicified limestone breccia adjacent to the Mezcal structure. Several additional holes, including HBET-02, -03, -06, -07, -08, -11, -13, -15 and -22 have intercepted extensions of this new and exciting geologic environment. The upcoming Phase 4 drill campaign will test the down dip extension of the gold mineralization.

Higo Blanco Project, Oaxaca, Mexico (PDF - 4.2MB)

In conclusion, Aura Silver enters the next phase of exploration at Higo Blanco to discover at depth a bonzana gold/silver precious metal deposit. The abundance of arsenic and antimony suggest that exploration to date remains well above the "bonanza" horizon as predicted in classic epithermal models. This is consistent with alteration (pyrite + illite; silicification) and vein textures (breccias; chalcedonic quartz; vuggy) supporting the likelihood of stronger silver and gold mineralization at depth.


Please click on the below photos for a larger view:

Taviche Core Pictures



Taviche General Pictures