Carbonate Hills Project
Lease Status: Available
Exploration Target: Undrilled Ore-grade Sediment Hosted Ag-Au Mineralization
Highlights:
- Widespread alteration development in Paleozoic carbonate stratigraphy, including jasperoid and decalcification.
- Numerous strong rock chip anomalies, with silver at ore grades of up to 781 g/t (25.1 ounces per ton Ag), with 33 samples containing over 1 opt Ag
- Gold is also at ore grades, with 33 samples containing over 1 g/t Au, up to 10.14 g/t Au.
- Only modern work known is one drill hole.
- Very early stage project, with only rock chip, limited soil sampling, and mapping conducted to date.
Location/District:
The Carbonate Hills project is located in the Black Range of western Sierra County, about 250 kilometers southwest of Albuquerque (Figure 1). The land is largely Gila National Forest, with some inliers of private land from patented mining claims. Genesis Gold currently holds 25 claims in the project area.
Target Type:
The target at Carbonate will be sediment hosted precious metals deposits, possibly silver rich Carlin-type gold deposits that are so prolific in Nevada and are likely present in southwest New Mexico. Stratigraphy and alteration at Carbonate are very prospective and similar to that of east-central Nevada. Since there has been no significant exploration, there is great possibility to discover near-surface oxide deposits amenable to low cost extraction.
Geology:
The Carbonate Hills geology is fairly simple: a large block of east-dipping Paleozoic sedimentary units cut by north-south trending faults with local Tertiary volcanics and intrusives (see cross section, Figure 7).
Alteration at the surface as presently known consists mainly widespread small to large jasperoid bodies (Figure 2) and local areas of decalcification. Much of the stratigraphy is receptive for sediment-hosted gold mineralization and jasperoids have been seen in many parts of the section.
History and Results:
The district and local area are mostly known for silver and base metal production with a gold by-product. The main production within the project area came from surface blocks of high-grade silver ore found near the Blacky Mine in the center of the project (Canby and Evatt, 1985).
Geochemistry:
A total of 186 soil samples were analyzed for gold only and represent 4 separate small grids. Gold values range up to 0.900 ppm gold with eleven samples containing greater than 0.200 ppm gold and a total of 16 samples
containing more than 0.100 ppm gold.
Results are available for 369 rock chip samples. Silver values are very strong (Figures 3, 5, 6), with thirty-three samples contain over 34.3 ppm (1 ounce per ton) silver and another 21 contain 10 to 34.3 ppm silver. The 200 samples with at least detection limit (0.2 ppm Ag) silver values average 22.2 ppm silver. Thirty-three rock samples contain over 1 ppm gold and another 21 contain 0.500 to 0.999 ppm gold. The 262 with at least detection limit (0.005 ppm Au) gold values average 0.491 ppm gold (Figures 4, 5, 6).
Arsenic is strongly anomalous at Carbonate, with values up to 2290 ppm. Antimony, mercury, and thallium are moderately anomalous. Lead and zinc values are overall higher than seen in Nevada Carlin-type systems but they do not correlate with gold values and may represent a separate phase of mineralization.
Potential and Exploration Scenario:
The Carbonate Hills project represents an excellent early stage sediment hosted (possibly Carlin-type) silver-gold target. Alteration is widespread, the stratigraphy is favorable, and geochemistry is compelling: undrilled jasperoids carrying >1 opt Ag or >1 g/t Au over any length are very few and very far between in the western US.
Because of the lack previous efforts, the project can be explored in a straightforward manner with basic surface techniques. The emphasis should be placed on defining controls on mineralization to assist in targeting a drill program. This would include further mapping, more soil sampling, and possibly geophysics. The result could be the discovery of near-surface oxide silver-gold deposits amenable to low cost mining.