EXLA Holds 7,000,000 shares, an 9.65% interest, in Tarku Resources with a ROFR to maintain its interest. Tarku owns 100% of the Silver Strike Project located in the famous Tombstone Mining District, Cochise County, Arizona, as well as the 3A’s Project, located in Matagami Greenstone Belt, Eeyou Istchee James Bay, Quebec.
Silver Strike Project Highlights
- Development Stage – Exploration
- Target Mineralisation – Silver-Lead-Zinc Carbonate Replacement Deposits
- Project Area – 1,250 ha
Location
Tombstone Mining District
The Tombstone Mining District, one of the earliest silver mining areas in the western United States with historic operations dating back to the time of initial discovery back in 1877. During a mining boom that lasted 38 years over 32 million ounces of silver at an average grade of 26 oz/t Ag (812.5 g/t) were extracted from the region. During this period miners focused on mining the shallow and higher-grade portions of the orebodies and, as a result of declining silver prices and difficult economic conditions, combined with the limited technical capacity for pumping water out of the workings at the time, around ninety-five percent of the production from the area was from the surface to a depth of 200 m.
Geology
Carbonate replacement deposits (CRD) in the area are largely associated with limestones and limey siltstones of the Bisbee Group. The Bisbee Group is interpreted to be present in the Tombstone area at relatively shallow depths (<400 metres) based on surface mapping. Elsewhere in Arizona Bisbee Group host significant mines, such as those at Bisbee (2.8 Moz Au, 102 Moz Ag and 7.8 billion lbs Cu), Christmas (0.36 billion lbs Cu), Magma (0.7 Moz Au, 34.5Moz Ag and 2.5 billion lbs Cu) and Taylor (344Moz Ag, 5.3mt Zn and 5.7mt Pb).
Previous Exploration
Tarku’s first drill program on the Silver Strike project was completed in May 2021. The 2,719 meters program defined high-grade mineralisation in proximity to the Lucky Cuss historic mine and demonstrated the strong regional potential with high-grade silver results also returned from 4km along strike at the historic Ground Hog mine. Results from the initial drill program include:
o 720 g/t silver, 6.44 g/t gold, 0.64% copper and 10.13% lead-zinc combined or 1,515 g/t silver equivalent (AgEq) over 1.5 m at 7.6 meters in hole SS21-007 (Lucky Cuss),
o 203 g/t silver, 0.31 g/t gold, 0.19% copper and 0.64% lead-zinc combined or 264 g/t silver equivalent (AgEq) over 1.5 m at 74.7 meters in hole SS21-007 (Lucky Cuss),
o 204 g/t silver, 0.38 g/t gold and 1.19% lead-zinc combined or 262 g/t silver equivalent (AgEq) over 1.5 m at 74.7 meters in hole SS21-012 (Ground Hog)
2022 Exploration Program
High-definition geophysical survey planned over the Silver Strike Project, to be followed up a minimum of 5,000-meter drill program focusing on surface to 400 meters depth along the Lucky Cuss and the Ground Hog trend. Exploration drilling will also testing the best geophysical anomalies of the planned survey over the property.