Enriched Rare Earth Elements Identified At The Oro Project

VANCOUVER - Southern Silver Exploration Corp. has verified enriched Rare Earth Elements (REEs) in reconnaissance hole OR22-012, which was part of the 2022 drilling program at its wholly owned Oro property, located in the Laramide-age, porphyry copper belt of southwestern New Mexico. The Company has staked 62 new claims during 2023 to cover the western extension of the buried porphyry/CRD/Skarn system associated with hole OR22-012. The new claims increase the total Oro land package to 334 company-owned and seven leased Federal lode mining claims; two leased New Mexico State parcels; and company-owned private surface and mineral titles covering an area of about 36 square kilometres.

A review of select light Rare Earth Elements (LREEs) from the earlier MS-ICP analyses from hole OR22-012 identified strong LREE enrichment. Thirty-nine pulps were selected from three enriched LREE zones for re-analyses by the more robust analytical method of fusion/ICPMS to confirm the initial test results and returned: 0.104% TREO (1,045 ppm) over 10.9m starting at 613.9m; 0.091% TREO (913 ppm) over 33.8m starting at 647.4m; and 0.128% TREO (1,285 ppm) over 24.4m starting at 794.0m. All three zones occur within a 427.2m interval of strongly enriched copper mineralization.

Joe Kizis, Consultant, said, "The mineralization in hole OR22-012 was initially very encouraging to us because it demonstrates the importance of favorable carbonate host rocks in developing strong copper mineralization. Perhaps importantly, REEs are not enriched in other portions of the Oro property, even within well zoned, but weak, copper porphyry -style mineralization and may thus indicate the porphyry system we believe lies to the west of OR22-012 is unique compared to other porphyries on the property.

More study will be required before we know if there is potential for byproduct REE's at Oro. There are 16 separate rare earth elements contained within at least 245 separate minerals, so metallurgy is very important to understanding the economic possibilities of these potential byproducts. One easily leached REE deposit in the US reports an average grade of 0.06% TREO and is being considered for economic development. However, these lowest grade deposits have a higher percentage of HREEs than we have seen at Oro to date, as well as other coproducts. REEs have many uses, ranging from additives to batteries, magnets, automobile windshields, and ceramics to processing petroleum. With about 90% of REEs being sourced from China, it's not surprising that the US, Canada, and other parts of the world consider REEs as Critical Minerals. With the newly acquired ground, we now have the room to develop these exciting targets."

Drill hole OR22-012 tested a strong ZTEM geophysical anomaly in an area believed to be relatively high in the metal system where mapping, geochemistry and geophysical data suggests a porphyry system lies at depth to the west on the newly stake ground.

The REE-enrich intervals occur within a broad 427.7m* Cu-enriched mineralized zone averaging 0.15% CuEq* (0.08% Cu, 0.01% Mo, and 1.4g/t Ag) and starting at 578.6m downhole (see NR-02-23, dated April 03, 2023). Within the broader mineralized zone, OR22-012 intersected veins with strongly anomalous gold (12.4 g/t over 0.8 metres* at 495.7 metres depth) in a banded anhydrite + pyrite + calcite breccia vein and, deeper in the hole, intersected anomalous silver and lead (908 g/t Ag and 10.4% Pb over 0.2 metres at 594.6 metres depth) in a barite + galena vein, consistent with expected metal zoning. Favourable carbonate host rocks were intersected with abundant sulphide minerals below a 6-metre-thick massive anhydrite vein at roughly 590-metres depth. The strongest mineralization is 9.1 metres* of 0.59% Cu, 0.01% Mo, 0.3 g/t Au, and 2.3g/t Ag (0.92% CuEq*) from 834.5 to 843.7 metres in a carbonate replacement zone with abundant magnetite, specular hematite, and epidote with minor pyrite, calcite, and anhydrite. Dikes ranging from unaltered to strongly altered are common throughout the hole.