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Location and Access
Access to San Pedro is via truck from Copalar to San Pedro (2 hrs), boat to La Estrelia (20mins), followed by a 5km horse ride to the camp. From the camp it is possible to walk to all of the showings in the northwest of the San Pedro project, which cover a 2km by 1.5km area. In the dry season you can drive to about 1km west of the zone.
Work History
The area was initially visited in 2004 by Radius staff who were following-up on local reports of gold. Our geologists have uncovered a number of trenches and adits, which are normally heavily overgrown with grass and bush. Most of the adits have collapsed either at the portal or further in. There appears to have been an early phase of exploration and small-scale mining which may date from the 1930s, followed by intensive surface trenching sometime around 1980.
Radius commenced a second round of exploration in the first quarter of 2005 focusing on expanding the limits of the known mineralization and completing detailed mapping and soil and rock geochemistry across key areas of the property.
Geology
Panning of stream sediments has defined an area of gold in stream sediments over a north-northwest trending area measuring roughly 12km by 3km. Radius' field crews subsequently discovered gold-mineralized quartz-adularia epithermal veins in three northwest-southeast trending zones within a 5km by 12km area. The PM Zone in the northwest has seen the most exploration, while the Las Minas and Feliz Zones to the southeast are at an earlier stage.
Epithermal gold mineralization occurs as massive quartz to banded quartz-adularia veins and associated quartz vein stockwork. Alteration minerals, vein textural evidence and exposures of silica scinter indicate that the outcropping veins are at a high-level in the mineralizing system. The gold-mineralized structures are hosted by tuffs in a caldera setting cut by regional northwest-southeast trending extensional faults, and intruded by a rhyodacitic dome field. Visible gold can be panned from most streams within the caldera and stream sediment sampling has returned a strong gold anomaly within and beyond the area of known occurrences. Mineralization is open in all directions.
At the PM Zone two parallel veins have been defined over a strike length of 1.8km. Recent reconnaissance trenching has returned higher grade results of 12.9g/t Au over 2.5m in trench PM1-A8, and 14.6g/t Au over 2.5m in trench PM1-B1. Soil sampling in this area has defined a consistent 300m wide +300ppb Au anomaly for 1,000m, open to the north. Pitting and trenching within the anomaly between the known veins has exposed additional 1m wide veins and a strong stockwork zone raising the possibility for bulk mineable target in this area. A series of 9 holes totalling 750m were drilled to test the grades received in the trenches at PM Zone, however the results were negative.
San Pedro trench results
Exploration of the Las Minas and Feliz Zones to the south of the PM Zone is at an early stage. Sampling of rocks in float and outcrop have returned gold grades ranging from trace to 38.2g/t Au outlining a 2km long, northwest-southeast trending mineralized structural zone at Las Minas. Trenching of the best results at the northwest end of this zone will start this month. Prospecting at the Feliz Zone has discovered 4 parallel veins in a 700m by 700m area partly ringed by rhyodacite intrusions. A grab sample of vein material from one of these veins assays 30.4g/t Au.
Radius' exploration personnel carried out mapping, prospecting, soil sampling, hand trenching, and chip sampling covering the known zones and possible regional extensions along and across strike. Gold-in-soil anomalies is particularly strong in the Las Minas area. Drilling testing is required in these areas and Radius is currently seeking a JV partner to advance these properties.
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