This project is located in northeastern Sonora State, Mexico about 80 miles south of the international border cities of Douglas, AZ and Agua Prieta, Sonora. Access from Agua Prieta is by Highway 12 south to Nacozari, Sonora about 65 miles, then southeasterly about another 35 miles passing through La Caridad, the large Grupo Mexico open pit copper mine and mill complex.
Geology
Valenzuela is located in the western foothills of the Sierra Madre epithermal mineralized belt. Sierra Madre mineralization generally refers to epithermal gold and silver mineralization localized in mid-Tertiary or older volcanics of the Sierra Madre volcanic belt. Included are recently explored deposits: El Sauzal, Mulatos, Dolores, Ocampo and Monterde. Numerous other districts of the region have production history from this type of mineralization, especially in the foothills region where access and infrastructure are much better. Most deposits have high grade vein zones, which may contain very rich bonanza-type gold and silver grades. Prior historic activities generally exploited the bonanza mineralization.
Local geology of the mine area consists of the lower group of volcanics and the Cretaceous-Tertiary dacitic volcanics with associated trachytic and rare rhyolitic intrusives, all of which make up the bedrock. A small area of outcropping limestone and shale occurs in the western side of the ridge adjacent to the range front fault. These sedimentary rocks are certain to the oldest rock unit in the area. The nearest known outcrop of similar rocks is west of Nacozari, and are part of the Bisbee Group of Cretaceous age.
A rhyolitic dike-like body crosses the ridgeline is possibly post-mineral to inter-mineral in age. A second rhyolitic dike occurs near the workings of the Valenzuela mine. Located east northeast of the Valle concession is a broad area of mountain range tops capped by the light gray-white "Upper Volcanics" series of layered rhyolitic tuffs and flows with a 10-15 degree northeast uniform dip. West-southwest of the Valle concession is a broad area in the canyon of the river basin consisting of the Tertiary basin fill partially cemented unsorted gravel, the Bacaurit Formation.
Exploration Update
About 40-50,000 tonnes of material have been underground mined from 2 epithermal quartz veins hosted in Cretaceous-Tertiary aged volcanic rocks at Valenzuela. Underground sampling of one vein has returned up to 1,500 g/t silver & 5 g/t gold, and limited sampling of leached vein material at surface elsewhere in the project has returned up to 600 g/t silver. More than 8 veins and limited stockwork can be traced across the ridge hosting the mineralized system.
Pediment's sampling program consisted of collecting 41 underground samples of vein material and altered wall rock and 153 surface rock chip samples of 1-2 meters length across weathered vein exposures. The survey also determined that northeasterly to easterly trending veins contain areas of significant or anomalous silver and/or gold, while one north trending vein contains low metal values.
Significant results include:
a. The San Patricio Vein, the most northerly of the exposed veins, returned an average 928 g/t silver and 1.6 g/t gold in four samples taken along 100 meters of strike, including a single sample that returned 2,890 g/t silver and 5.6 g/t gold. The northernmost San Patricio sample returned 406 ppm silver and 0.45 g/t gold.
b. The Amanda Vein averaged 347 g/t silver and 0.84 g/t from three samples taken along a 75 meter strike, plus anomalous gold (0.08 to 0.14 g/t) with up to 187 g/t silver from six other samples along a further 275 meters.
c. The Amelia Vein returned anomalous gold (0.1 to 0.31 g/t) results along 200 meters, and La Valenzuela Vein and splay veins that have most of the old workings returned similar results along about 400 meters of trend.
Pediment also purchased two internal claims from a third party, and now holds a contiguous block of 400 hectares containing La Valenzuela system with no underlying interests or royalties.