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Del Oro Property
The Del Oro Property is located within the historic Goldbanks mining district in Pershing County, Nevada, approximately 80 kilometres (50 miles) east of Battle Mountain, and approximately 6.4 kilometres (4 miles) northwest of Kinross Goldbanks deposit. Subject to third party net smelter returns royalties, the Del Oro Property is 100% controlled by Columbus.
In July 2007, Columbus Gold entered into an agreement with Ventura Gold Corp. to explore and develop the Del Oro Property. Under the terms of the agreement, Ventura can earn an initial 51% interest in the Del Oro Property by incurring US$2 million in exploration expenditures over a five year period.
Geology
The Del Oro Property is principally underlain by the Pennsylvanian-Permian Havallah Formation, comprising clastic rocks (quartzite, arkose, argillite and sandy phyllite), chert and silty limestone. In the southern Pronto Plata area, the Havallah contains significant sections of greenstone. The Havallah has locally been overthrust in the northwestern part of the property by the Cambrian Harmony Formation sandstone. Immediately west of the claim block, the Ordovician Valmy Formation is in steep fault contact with the Harmony Formation. Tertiary volcaniclastic sediments, overlain by Tertiary basalt, cover the Palaeozoic rocks in the southwest.
The sediments are cut by intermediate to felsic intrusive rocks locally. The thrusts generally trend northwest and are cut by northeasterly trending high-angle faults. The northeasterly fault trend is sub-parallel to the extensive Rye shear/vein system, to the southeast. Gold mineralization at Del Oro occurs as veins and stockworks in Triassic volcanics and sediments and mercury occurs in a classic opalite setting within Tertiary volcanics.
Past Work
The Del Oro Property has seen several episodes of exploration in the 1980's and 90's. Details of historical drilling are incomplete, but almost 5,000 metres (16,000 feet) of drilling has been carried out at 43 locations during 4 separate campaigns. Gold mineralization has been reported up to 1.3 g/t (0.037 opt) in surface rock samples by previous operators and drilling confirms gold mineralization in the subsurface i.e. 3.1 metres (10 feet) at 1.07 g/t (0.031 opt) Au and 7.6 metres (25 feet) at 0.41 g/t (0.012 opt) Au ). The analytical data also indicates anomalous silver, mercury, arsenic and antimony associated with the mineralization. Historic mining activities recovered mercury from shallow pits and adits in opalite, hosted by Tertiary sedimentary rocks.
Planned Program
Ventura Gold has an active program consisting of geological mapping, soil sampling, prospecting, target generation, and drilling planned for the 2009 season.
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