Vancouver, Canada, March 4th, 2021 – Heliostar Metals Limited (TSX.V: HSTR, OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG) ("Heliostar" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the company has commenced exploration on its three gold-silver epithermal projects in northern Sonora State, Mexico; a region that is host to many high-grade gold and silver deposits. The company has begun an initial 1,500-meter drilling program at the La Lola project and surface exploration and drill target generation is underway at the Cumaro and Oso Negro properties.
Program Highlights
Heliostar CEO, Charles Funk, commented “We are excited to get our geologists in the field on our three projects in Mexico. This district is a new hotspot for gold and silver discoveries with two operating precious metals mines, a third in construction and multiple discoveries within the last few years. The Heliostar team has over 50 years of cumulative experience in this area and we acquired La Lola, Cumaro and Oso Negro based on their similarities to the recent discoveries. The company believes all three of the projects have considerable potential for discovery. We look forward to reporting results over the coming weeks.”
La Lola
The La Lola property is a 63.6 square kilometer land package near Equinox Gold’s Mercedes mine, First Majestic Silver’s Santa Elena mine, SilverCrest’s Las Chispas deposit, Silver Tiger Metals’ El Tigre deposit and Grupo Mexico’s giant La Caridad mine (Figure 1).
The property includes the prospective La Barra vein, a 5 kilometre-long quartz-carbonate-fluorite vein with elevated values of gold, silver and pathfinder elements. Despite being a prominent target, the vein has never been drilled. In outcrop the vein is up to 40 metres wide and has textures typical of shallow epithermal formation. Broad clay alteration, fluorite and low temperature textures suggest that the surface expression of the La Barra vein is the top of an epithermal system and that the metal-rich zone of the epithermal system may exist at depth.
Precious metals values in rocks generally contain low values as would be expected based on the shallow level expression of the geological model. However, values up to 56.6 g/t gold and up to 424 g/t silver have been found within the larger vein zone and are believed to represent stronger pulses of mineralization which were able to propagate closer to the surface. Historic mining on the vein has focused on fluorite that occurs near surface within the vein zone and is a shallow level feature of other productive systems such as at the Los Gatos mine in Chihuahua.
Drilling at La Lola has commenced and a total of 1,500m of core drilling is planned.
Several other vein zones are present and have received little historical sampling or mapping and represent further exploration opportunities.
Cumaro
Cumaro is a five square kilometre claim lying within SilverCrest’s actively explored El Picacho district and hosts the extensions of the El Picacho, Dos Amigos, and Basaitegui Veins. In February SilverCrest announced the completion of 42 holes with 21 holes intercepting an average of 4.1 metres estimated true vein width grading 8.14 g/t gold and 49.7 g/t silver1. The best hole reported, PI-20-006, returned 7.25 metres of estimated true vein width grading 40.49 g/t gold and 260.4 g/t silver. These intercepts are approximately 1,800 metres along strike from Heliostar’s Cumaro claim. The El Picacho Project is a nearby project that is not owned by Heliostar Metals Limited. There is no guarantee Heliostar will return similar exploration results as at El Picacho.
The geology of the El Picacho - Cumaro district can be considered as two halves, with the western half comprising outcropping precious-metal bearing veins that project directly from the El Picacho claim on to the Cumaro claim. The eastern half is interpreted to have been downthrown relative to the western half, thus potentially preserving the El Picacho mineralized level at shallow depth. Surface alteration at Cumaro comprises corridors of clay, quartz and calcite; assemblages that support the shallow level geological interpretation of the western block at Cumaro.
The vein extensions on the Cumaro claim have received little exploration work and no known drilling. Work is currently underway to advance exploration at the vein extensions to drill ready status.
Oso Negro
Oso Negro is a historic mining district with outcropping veins returning samples up to 2,680 g/t silver and 100.5 g/t gold from dump samples. Within the district, numerous veins are known and can be traced for hundreds of metres at surface, including the El Sahuaro, El Prospecto, Santa Rosa, Del Monte, Tere, and El Manchuri Veins.
Systematic exploration work is underway and will advance the known vein occurrences to a drill decision point.
About Heliostar Metals Ltd.
Heliostar is a well-financed junior exploration and development company with a portfolio of high-grade gold projects in Alaska and Mexico. The company’s flagship asset is the 100% controlled Unga Gold Project on Unga and Popof Islands in Alaska. The project hosts an intermediate sulfidation epithermal gold deposit, located within the district-scale property that encompasses 240km2 across the two islands. Additional targets on the property include porphyry, high sulphidation and intermediate sulphidation epithermal veins. On Unga Island, priority targets include: the SH-1 and Aquila, both on the Shumagin Trend, the former Apollo-Sitka mine, which was Alaska’s first underground gold mine and the Zachary Bay porphyry gold-copper prospect. Gold mineralization at the Centennial Zone is located on neighbouring Popof Island within four kilometres of infrastructure and services at Sand Point.
In Mexico, the company owns 100% of three early stage epithermal projects in Sonora that are highly prospective for gold and silver. Cumaro forms part of the El Picacho district, while the Oso Negro and La Lola projects are also prospective for epithermal gold-silver mineralization.
Note 1: SilverCrest Metals Inc. news release dated February 24, 2021 https://www.silvercrestmetals.com/news/2021/index.php?content_id=462
Qualified Person
The Company’s disclosure of technical or scientific information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Stewart Harris, P.Geo., Exploration Manager for the Company. Mr. Harris is a Qualified Person as defined under the terms of National Instrument 43-101.
For additional information please contact:
Charles Funk
Chief Executive Officer
Heliostar Metals Limited
Email: charles.funk@heliostarmetals.com
Rob Grey
Investor Relations Manager
Heliostar Metals Limited
Email: rob.grey@heliostarmetals.com
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Information. This release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Forward-looking statements in this press release include Heliostar’s plans to continue aggressive exploration at Unga in 2021 and its goal of defining a resource in excess of one million ounces, its plan to continue infill drilling to expand to depth where the system remains open, and its belief that the SH-1 prospect has considerable potential for expansion. Although Heliostar believes that the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not a guarantee of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, weather, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.
