Luca Mining Corp. is pleased to announce that a new high grade gold mineralization over significant widths has been confirmed at the Tahuehueto Gold Mine in Durango, Mexico. The mineralization occurs in shoots branching off the main Creston vein at Underground Level 23. Creston is one is one of two main structures currently being mined. New geological mapping and channel sampling at this level confirmed the presence of breccia ore shoots up to 20m wide with some internally assayed channel samples returning greater than 20 g/t Au.
Ramon Perez, Interim CEO, commented: “Our geology team at Tahuehueto are doing excellent work. They are progressively adding to our understanding of the mineralisation and confirming the enormous upside potential of the mine. These wide and higher-grade mineralised zones at depth, where two vein splays intersect, were identified in earlier drilling. With the added detail from mapping and channel sampling we see the excellent potential in multiple areas. These wider, high-grade zones will be part of our plan to ramp-up to 1,000 tpd, a milestone we expect to achieve in the next few months. I look forward to providing more updates as our work here unfolds.”
Level 23 Geology
The underground mine development at Tahuehueto has been advancing since early 2022 and most recently has included developing access, dewatering and mining the first stopes of Level 23, currently the lowest level in the mine. Two mineralized splays have been exposed on the hangingwall and footwall sides of the Creston fault, and mineralized breccia in between with economic widths up to 20m. In this zone there are two types of mineralization; the first is represented by northeast-trending veins of structurally controlled hydrothermal breccias carrying zinc and lead sulphides, hosted in highly altered andesitic rocks with greater contents of gold and copper as a result of higher temperature and deep-seated mineralization. The second type consists of high-grade gold and silver mineralization, superimposed over the lodes and breccias of base metals sulphides formed in previous stages of mineralization.
The block model developed for the pre-feasibility study (refer to Technical Report Preliminary Feasibility Study, 2022) identified maximum vein widths in this area of 8.4m in the hangingwall and 6.5m in the footwall vein splays on Level 23 respectively. Actual vein widths are very comparable, with up to 4.9m in the footwall and 9.5m in the hangingwall, though detailed vein geometries vary. The footwall splay has been exposed 160 meters along strike and shows excellent continuity. Figure 2 shows channel sampling of the southwestern extent vein-breccia zone, about half of the fully exposed footwall splay. This area extends laterally 200 meters by 230 vertical meters based on diamond drilling, and the area remains open at depth and to the NE and SW. These targets are already included within the exploration program.
