ECR cheers La Rioja success

By Sarah Modlock | Thu, 15/09/2011 – 12:12

Gold and base metals miner ECR Minerals (ECR) soared on Thursday as it revealed high grades at its Sierra de las Minas gold project area in La Rioja Province, Argentina.

It said these included assay results of 32.5 grams/tonne (g/t) gold, 21.9 g/t gold and 14.5 g/t gold returned by surface geochemical sampling of 13 prospects.

The AIM-listed miner said the Maestro Agüero prospect has been identified as a high-grade quartz vein system with a minimum strike length of 350 metres and a geophysical survey at El Abra gold prospect will begin this month.

“The achievement of consistent high-grade assays from sampling in the Sierras Las Minas complex continues to generate excitement within ECR, and further work will now begin to focus on developing our knowledge of zones that may be economic to mine,” commented managing director Patrick Harford.

ECR began the second phase of its 2011 sampling programme for the Sierra de las Minas gold project area in late July with the objective of evaluating known prospects within the project area and prioritising them for further exploration.

The first phase of the programme was completed earlier in the year at the El Abra prospect, yielding numerous high-grade results.

Harford said the company has sampled approximately two kilometres of vein length at Sierra de las Minas so far.

“With mineralised widths at surface frequently exceeding one metre and samples obtained to date from sections identified as potentially suitable for selective mining returning an average grade greater than eight grams/tonne gold, the possibility of mining and transporting high-grade ores to an existing plant elsewhere may now be considered.

“This may provide an inexpensive and relatively rapid route to cashflow from the Sierra de las Minas project.”

See original article in: http://www.iii.co.uk/articles/18515/ecr-cheers-la-rioja-success