First 5 Holes Of Phase 1 Drill Program Completed On Tombstone Property, Tombstone Silver Mining District, Arizona

VANCOUVER - Aztec Minerals Corp. reported that the first 5 holes totaling 843 meters of the current 2,900 meter, 20-hole Phase 1 reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at the Tombstone Property have been completed. Drill samples were shipped to and received by Bureau Veritas Minerals laboratory for geochemical analysis and results are anticipated in the next weeks.

Four holes were drilled in a "spoke pattern" to test the central segment of the north-trending main Contention Structure which hosts the historic underground and open pit Contention mine. All four holes intersected old mine workings and pervasively oxidized and hematite-rich, silicified hydrothermal breccias composed of quartz feldspar porphyry dike and Bisbee Group clastic sedimentary fragments, typical of the Contention Mine mineralization.

Manganese-rich quartz veins and breccias and limestone recrystalized and altered to hornfels and weak skarn were also intersected. The deepest hole was drilled to 230m (200m vertical) and remained in oxidized rocks the whole way. An additional hole was drilled southeast of the main Contention Pit to test for parallel mineralized zones and intersected two separate structures with quartz-carbonate alteration.

Aztec holds an option to acquire a 75% interest in the Tombstone property, which includes many of the original patented mining claims in the district. The main target of the current RC drill program is to test for shallow, bulk tonnage, heap leachable, epithermal gold-silver oxide mineralization adjacent and below the previously mined Contention pit.