The 13,350 hectare Daniel project is located in northwest Sonora State, 40 kilometres northwest of Caborca and 15 km. south of Tajitos which is connected to Caborca by State Highway 2. Access to most of the concession area is good.
The exploration model for Daniel is the nearby producing La Herradura gold mine, hosted by stacked thrust fault zones in Precambrian granite with gold associated with the thrust zones and related flat lying veins. The geological setting at Daniel is very similar to La Herradura and appears permissive of the deposition of bulk tonnage gold silver mineralization.
Most of the project area is underlain by massive Triassic-Jurassic rhyodacite volcanics which has been intruded in places by andesite volcanic dykes and sills. Rhyodacite is the common basement rock throughout the region and is the host rock for the La Herradura gold mine and other local deposits. As with other Mojave-Sonora Megashear projects, the dominant structural feature on the Daniel project is low angle thrust faults which are the focus of most of the known mineralization. The thrust zone can be seen in the Coronela Mine area where brecciation and silicification associated with the zone reaches widths of 25 meters. It continues for at least one kilometre to the north, but is cut off by a crosscutting fault to the south. There are also a number of steep northeast trending faults that cut the flat lying zones and may have been the conduits for mineralizing fluids. The steeper faults tend to have less silica content and hence do not outcrop as often.
There are three main areas of abandoned mine workings on the Daniel property, all of them very old and most of them completely or partially caved. The Coronela Mine is located in the middle of the eastern side of the concession, the Sierrita workings located 1.5 km. south of Coronela and the Morita area workings located from 1.5 to 3 km northwest of Coronela. Coronela is reported to be 0.5 to 2 metres wide; current evidence for it is a series of five shallow shafts or pits in a largely pediment covered area. Southwest of this area is a long north-westerly trending ridge in which the silicified thrust zone is visible. The thrust dips at a shallow 6-10 degree angle intersected by a northeast trending steep fracture zone which may be the source of mineralizing fluids. Samples of the thrust zone exposed in pits 30 metres apart near the fracture zone graded 9.69 g/t gold and 31.2 g/t silver over 3 metres in one pit and 8.43 g/t gold and 31.7 g/t silver in the other.
The Sierrita workings accessed a 1.5 metre vein that dipped at 20-30 degrees to the southwest and was traceable for about 180 metres until it passed out of the ridge. Workings in the valley floor 400-500 metres farther south occupy the projected trace of the vein. Samples of the vein taken in an adit near the ridge top graded 19.55 g/t gold and 31.7 g/t silver. 500 metres farther south still, old pits expose a zone of fracturing and stockwork veining with abundant limonite and some chrysocolla. A 3 mere horizontal sample taken here graded 4.93 g/t gold and 2,000 g/t silver.
The Mortita area contains a number of old workings spread over a broad area which do not appear to be targeting the thrust zones as the other areas do. Workings are centered on high angle quartz veins hosted by rhyodacite with north and north easterly orientations. The veins are contained within a fault block. Samples from a number of veins in this area graded from 0.23 to 7 g/t gold and up to 132 g/t silver. Two new trenching results of the La Morita area contained 18 meters of 1.39 g/t Au in the first trench, and a second north-south oriented trench located 200 meters to the southeast returned separate sections with 24 m of 0.69 g/t Au and 12 m of 1.66 g/t Au.
The Coyote zone is located about 1 km west of the Coronela showings in an area with no evidence of prior prospecting. It was originally identified by a gold-in-soil anomaly from sample lines with 50-metre sample spacing, and confirmed by continuous chip sampling which found: 5 metres of 5.96 g/t Au, 2 metres of 6.18 g/t Au; 5 metres of 2.24 g/t Au, and 1 metre of 2.25 g/t Au. The rock-chip samples were taken from surface exposures focused on a zone of quartz veining and stockwork that has an approximate thickness of 30 metres. Structural features observed within the Coyote zone include abundant high- and low-angle structures with common hematitic limonite material derived from oxidized sulfides. Stockwork fracturing and veining is also present between the structures in gold mineralized areas. The gold-in-soil anomaly continues for 300 metres north within pediment cover from the rock chip-sampled area.
Exploration Update
Geological mapping and trench sampling at Daniel done from late 2006 through 2007 established a trend of approximately four-kilometer length in which gold is associated with quartz-carbonate vein and stockwork zones. Further to identifying targets within the trend, Pediment followed up with an RC drill program totaling 4,934 meters of drilling in early 2008.
The final drilling resulted in numerous short intervals with gold mineralization, but not mineable grades or widths. The project area is a small part of the larger concession area, and possible joint ventures or additional reconnaissance work may be done in the future. No further work has been conducted at the Daniel project since February 2008.
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