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Location Map - IRN Projects - Northern Chile
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Exploradora AA Rock Samples Overview Map, Aug 2011
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Exploradora AA Rock Samples Au, Aug 2011
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Exploradora AA Rock Samples Ag, Aug 2011
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Exploradora AA Rock Samples As, Aug 2011
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Exploradora AA Rock Samples Sb, Aug 2011
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The Exploradora property covers approximately 4,510 hectares and is located immediately south of Codelco's and Rio Tinto's Exploradora porphyry copper-gold project, along the prospective Domeyko Fault Zone (DFZ) of northern Chile, and is prospective for epithermal gold and silver mineralization of low sulphidation type. The DFZ lies along the Late Eocene-Oligocene volcanic belt of northern Chile that hosts some of the most important copper deposits in the country.
The Exploradora property is subject to an option agreement between Minera Mena Chile Limitada - Iron Creek's Chilean subsidiary (Iron Creek), and Anglo American PLC's Chilean subsidiary, Anglo American Norte S.A. ("Anglo American"). The Option Agreement was signed on August 26th, 2011 and grants Iron Creek the exclusive right and option to acquire a 100% interest in Anglo American's Exploradora property, subject to the terms and conditions indicated below.
Geological Setting of the Exploradora Epithermal Precious Metals Veins
The Exploradora District consists of a central porphyry copper-gold system controlled by Codelco and Rio Tinto (published resource of approximately 100Mt @ 0.3% Cu + 0.2g/t Au), and skarn-hosted polymetallic veins at Mina Ciclon to the west and Mina Exploradora to the northwest. The Anglo American properties cover the south-western and south-eastern outer margins of the porphyry system, together with a series of low-sulphidation style, epithermal quartz veins, visible in outcrop, in minor trenches, and as abundant float over a broad area. Iron Creek's option agreement will allow the Company to properly explore and evaluate the gold and silver potential of the epithermal veins.
Work Completed To Date
Minor historic exploration of the epithermal quartz veins (by Compañía Minera Orion in the 1990s and by Mariana Resources in 2007) failed to fully explore and test their potential, with most of the exploration directed towards looking for extensions to the porphyry target.
Anglo American collected 125 rock chip samples of vein material in the Portezuelo and Ladera areas which returned gold grades from trace to 2.16g/t Au at Portezuelo and up to 2.38 g/t at Ladera, together with anomalous silver values up to 169 g/t Ag at Portezuelo and 231 g/t Ag at Ladera. Samples are also generally anomalous in the typical epithermal pathfinder elements such as arsenic and antimony.
Iron Creek collected 10 grab samples which returned values from trace up to 3.45 g/t Au and 65.5 g/t Ag in the Portezuelo area, and anomalous gold < 1 g/t Au with higher silver up to 480 g/t Ag at the topographically lower Ladera veins. Base metals become increasingly important at lower elevations and sampling returned up to 4.75% Pb and 1.62 % Zn in grab samples in the Ladera area.
Quartz vein material in outcrop and in float blocks exhibits classical low sulphidation epithermal textures, including bladed quartz after calcite, colloform and crustiform banding, and brecciation.
Details of the Agreement
The option agreement grants Iron Creek the exclusive right and option to acquire a 100% interest in Anglo American's Exploradora Property, subject to the terms as outlined below:
- Iron Creek to incur cumulative exploration expenses of no less than US$7 million over a period of 4 years, with a firm commitment to invest US$250,000 in the first year of the agreement;
- Upon Iron Creek having exercised its option, Iron Creek will grant Anglo American a 3% NSR royalty payable on commencement of commercial production of all metals from the Property. Three years after exercise of the option, Iron Creek will commence paying to Anglo American an advanced royalty of US$250,000 per year, such payments to be deducted from any future NSR royalty payments due;
- Anglo American having the right and option to acquire through a back-in option a 65% interest in any portion of the Property containing a copper resource as defined by a NI43-101 compliant report:
- Such back-in option will not apply to any precious metals resource identified on the Property by Iron Creek
- If the precious metals resource identified contains an average grade in excess of 0.4% Cu, the back-in option will apply
- The back-in option is exercisable by Anglo American at any time after Iron Creek has exercised the option and within 6 months of Iron Creek having advised Anglo American in writing that Iron Creek has determined the copper resource as indicated above, by paying in cash to Iron Creek two times cumulative exploration expenses incurred to the date of the back-in notification, and by investing in exploration and development of the copper resource to an equivalent of two times Iron Creek's cumulative exploration expenses incurred to the date of the back-in notification
- In the case that Anglo American exercises its back-in option for any copper resource, Iron Creek and Anglo American will enter into an industry standard joint venture agreement for the further exploration and development of the copper resource area, with the initial interests in the joint venture company being 65% (Anglo American) and 35% (Iron Creek). In such case, all advanced royalty payments by Iron Creek to Anglo American relating to any copper resource will terminate.
Qualified Person
Demetrius Pohl, P.Geo., is the Company's Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and is responsible for the accuracy of the technical information in this project summary. Dr. Pohl has verified that it is an accurate summary of the results from Exploradora exploration programme.
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