Orion Project
The Orion Project lies in the prolific Sierra Madre Occidental, which hosts numerous multi-million ounce gold-silver deposits. The Orion Project is one of the larger contiguous concessions in the Sierra Madre, composed of more than +110,000 hectares. The Project is located on the SE flank of the Sierra Madre, about 125 km south of the famous Tayoltita district which has reserves reported to be +20 million gold equivalent ounces.
The Orion Project was likely explored during the Spanish Colonial times during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during which time they operated numerous mines throughout Western Mexico, including the state Nayarit. While past exploration and production depended on rudimentary techniques, the company has employed modern techniques to evaluate the property. Over the last several years, the company has focused its efforts on a small portion of the concession. It’s estimated that less than 2% of the property has been explored, although in recent months Nayarit has increased its target generation effort in light of the success with the discovery of the Animas/Del Norte system. The Animas Del Norte system is Nayarit’s first significant discovery.
As at Tayoltita, the Animas/Del Norte system was discovered in an east-west vein structure which has been traced for more than 4 kilometres on surface. This same structure is also host to four other small mines along the vein. Nayarit is focusing its immediate exploration program on this particular vein system with the goal of identifying multiple mineralized zones. In addition, Nayarit has implemented a mapping, soil and rock sampling program to identify additional structures for testing. Within the larger concession there are at least 10 past producing mines and 19 known zones of mineralization. The company is systematically exploring these targets using modern exploration methods to assess the potential of these known zones.
The Project, which is about 110 km NW of Tepic, is well situated having excellent infrastructure including a railroad, major power transmission line and the Pan American Highway passing through it. The terrain is gently rolling hills which will allow for ease of construction as the project is pushed towards production.
Gold mineralization at Orion is epithermal in character and hosted in a series of east-west trending breccia zones and mineralized quartz veins. The geochemical suite identified at Orion also suggests there has been little erosion providing significant evidence that if additional ore is present it has not been removed.
The image below illustrates the focus area for Nayarit in the immediate future. Exploration in this area will be composed of soil and rock sampling, mapping, target generation and drilling. As can be seen this area of focus is only a small portion of the concession as there are numerous areas with known targets which have not been explored. The focus area, outlined in the red box below, hosts the Animas/Del Norte Discovery. This discovery is part of a vein system that has been traced for more than four kilometres and is open in both directions. This structure also hosts the San Francisco, Sebastiana and Pantaleona target areas where exploration including drilling in ongoing.
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