Update On The Cherokee Project Drill Targets Identified
VANCOUVER - Silver One Resources Inc. reported on the 2020 exploration at its 100% owned Cherokee Project, Nevada. The work was undertaken between August and December 2020 and was successful in helping to define drill targets in the Cherokee Mine, Johnnie and Hidden Treasure areas. The programs also have increased the understanding of the geological and structural controls on mineralization, identified additional areas displaying multiple styles of alteration and mineralization, and have highlighted the need for additional exploration along the entire 12 km structural corridor.
Highlights: 3 areas with drill targets selected to date; Large zones of alteration with strongly elevated silver, gold and copper identified. These zones may be related to large replacement or porphyry systems at depth; and Large upside exploration potential remains throughout the property.
Greg Crowe, President and CEO, said, “The Cherokee project continues to advance and evolve from a single epithermal silver-copper vein first found at the historic Cherokee Mine, to multiple styles of silver-gold-copper mineralization throughout the property. The various styles include epithermal veins, vein breccias, and areas of extensive alteration and veining, some of which may be indicative of larger replacement or porphyry style deposits at depth. This mineralized system is developing into a district scale play, similar to the historic silver vein and replacement camp at Pioche located 50 miles to the north, which is also hosted in Paleozoic-Mesozoic aged rock units.
Initial drill targets have been identified in the surface vein and vein breccia zones at Cherokee, Johnnie and Hidden Treasure, but further exploration along the entire 12 km structural corridor will likely produce additional drilling targets in the near future. Additionally, a large magnetic high in the southeastern part of the property may represent a buried intrusive that was the target of a deep porphyry molybdenum drilling program in the 1980’s. All of the above suggest the Cherokee property may be host to an intrusive centered system exceeding 1 km in vertical extent that includes distal epithermal veins and replacements, and potential porphyry deposits at depth. This evolving high-grade silver-gold-copper system continues to enhance the prospectivity of the property.”
To date, geologic mapping has been completed over 90% of the claim block. A total of 830 rock and 727 soil samples have been analyzed and a helicopter-towed aeromagnetic three-axis gradient survey was conducted over the entire Cherokee project area. Significant silver gold and copper mineralization has been identified over the entire area in two main geologic settings. Vein mineralization is composed of massive to banded quartz, chalcedony and calcite with minor amounts of silver and copper bearing minerals. Vein textures, including boiling point textures, in combination with elevated copper values at Cherokee may indicate that mineralization there is deeper in the epithermal system than that found at Hidden Treasure and Johnnie . The mineralogy of the alteration zones and solution breccia bodies is similar but contains barite and minor fluorite.
Across the property, multiple veins, each in excess of 1-2 meter wide, occur within a structural corridor that has been traced for over 12 km along strike. It must be emphasized that the veins and alteration areas are oxidized and leached within 3 meters of the surface and that the vast majority of the entire structural corridor has not been sampled in detail. Drill programs have been designed and proposed for three of the vein systems: Cherokee corridor (Cherokee Mine and SE Cherokee), Johnnie-Mojoto corridor and the Hidden Treasure vein system. Cherokee is underlain by Patented claims, so would be first on the drill roster. The Cherokee corridor is developed along a major NW-trending normal fault with at least several hundred meters of displacement. A major system of silver-copper veins has been identified over 4 kilometers containing four segments or shoots in excess of 300 meters each at Rattlesnake, Cherokee mine, SE Cherokee mine and Jackrabbit. Sampling at the Cherokee and SE Cherokee mines has identified strongly banded veins in outcrop and dumps containing select surface samples returning silver and copper values from background to highs s in excess of 1150 g/t silver and 4.8% copper.
The Johnnie-Mojoto corridor is a major pre- and post-mineral NW-trending normal fault vein system that has been mapped over 9 kilometers along strike. Near the Johnnie mine, a 1.3 km segment of the corridor hosts a robust area of veining up to 75 meters wide, composed of hydrothermal breccia and chalcedony veins. Select surface samples in several areas along the vein structure returned anomalous silver values from background to 27.3 g/t silver and gold values from background to 0.434 g/t. The presence of higher gold values and lower copper values at Johnnie may be indicative of a shallower level within the epithermal vein system.
Hidden Treasure is comprised of at least 5 distinct sub-parallel veins identified over a 2 km strike in the footwall of the Mojoto structural corridor. The primary targets here are the hanging-wall veins, with select surface samples returning values from background to 1.9 kg/t (1900 ppm or g/t) silver and up to 2 g/t Au. Broad zones of parallel chalcedony veins are observed across a zone measuring up to 50 meters in width. This area represents a wide zone of multiple veining with individual high-grade veins within the wider alteration halo.
Areas of hydrothermal solution breccia represent a different style of mineralization that is widely developed in several areas within the Cherokee project. This type of alteration and associated mineralization is hosted within limestone and calcareous sandstone units throughout the Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks. In two specific areas, the Garden Mountain and Blue Nose - Viola corridors, these breccia bodies occur as semi-conformable lenses up to 10 meters in width and traceable in the surface for a few to several hundred meters along the strike of the ‘favorable’ horizon. Mapping has revealed that these breccia bodies are best developed immediately below or adjacent to jasperoid bodies or at the limestone-sandstone interface. Select surface sampling has returned highly anomalous values in silver, gold and copper in both of these areas.
The proximity to jasperoid masses, extensive decalcification of the limestone and epithermal textures in the breccia masses, suggest that they occupy upper levels of a robust dissolution and mineralizing event. Although generally oxidized and leached, several occurrences of these hydrothermal solution breccias contain relict silver-copper-lead-zinc sulfides in a quartz-calcite-barite-fluorite gangue. Select surface samples report silver values ranging from background to over 500 g/t silver, 2.0 g/t gold and 10,000 ppm (1%) copper at Blue Nose.
The mineralogy of the vein deposits and alteration zone solution breccias is sufficiently similar to suggest that their fluids emanated from similar sources. Their distinct appearances suggest contrasting pre-mineral ground preparation prior to the mineralizing events. It is also possible that the areas of alteration and solution breccias may be volumetrically important as exploration follows these favorable horizons to greater depths. At the historic Cherokee mine workings, limited silver production via several shallow workings indicates that erosion has reached the productive horizon on veins and vein breccias. Additionally, the extensive presence of hydrothermal solution breccia elsewhere on the property, with anomalous silver, gold and copper values, suggest that the overall epithermal system is vertically preserved, and erosion has been minimal. This also heightens the prospectivity for these mineralized systems at depth.