- Global adoption of electric vehicles driving demand for cobalt and lithium
- Exploration rebooted on strategic claims in Lithium Triangle
- Gold veins also discovered at San Roque Gold Property
It’s not often that you get a winning combination from a mineral exploration company like the one put together by Marifil Mines Ltd. (TSX.V: MFM) (OTCQB: MFMLF). The junior explorer, based in Vancouver, Canada, has assembled a portfolio of claims that compose properties containing lithium, cobalt, gold and other valuable elements and minerals. As the world abandons fossil fuel-powered vehicles, demand for lithium and cobalt continues to climb; the metals are an essential component in batteries for the electric vehicles that will replace them. Argentina, where the Marifil properties lie, is part of the famed lithium triangle that hosts 54 percent of the world’s lithium resources. Given the axiom that gold always glitters, Marifil’s exploration activities appear to signal a trifecta of opportunity, which has not gone unnoticed. Earlier this year, the company announced that it had completed a private placement of ordinary shares. Part of the proceeds are already being used to resume drilling at its flagship San Roque gold property (http://ibn.fm/9ocbH).
San Roque is a 42,321‐hectare (163 square miles) property that lies near the Atlantic coast in a region of well-developed infrastructure, located in the southern Argentine Province of Rio Negro. The San Roque claims contain a bulk tonnage sulfide deposit comprising minerals of gold, silver, lead, zinc and indium disseminated in tens of millions of tonnes of host volcanic rocks. There is as well a newly discovered series of gold-bearing quartz veins. Exploration of this system of veins has just begun, with a series of trenches made to expose and better sample them. These gold-bearing veins exceed a kilometer in length and are generally in the one-to-three meter range of width. Marifil’s San Roque mining rights are held by nine mineral tenures, three of which are now granted titles covering 95 patented mining claims that total 9,449 hectares (36.5 square miles).
The San Roque property is situated in relatively flat desert terrain averaging about 200 meters in elevation and so is accessible by vehicle all year round. It is jointly owned by Marifil, which has a 51 percent interest, and Novagold Resources, with 49 percent. Several deposits of significant gold-silver-indium-lead-zinc mineralization have been discovered on a four-kilometer-long zone, and drilling has yielded significant results that include an intersection of 233 meters of 0.64 grams per metric ton, plus 10.5 grams per metric ton of silver with just traces of base metals, including a run of 2.27 grams per metric ton and 42.6 grams per metric ton of silver over 35 meters starting at the drill hole collar.
Marifil is also exploring for gold and silver in Chubut Province at its Lago Fontana property. Named after the nearby Fontana Lake, the property is located in the Andean Mountain front near the Argentine-Chilean border. It is easily accessible by road and lies about 400 kilometers (249 miles) from the large city of Comodoro Rivadavia. The claims there consist of 11 patented mine rights covering 498 hectares.
Marifil’s lithium interests are strategically situated in the heart of the lithium property claims staking rush going on in Catamarca province. Marifil’s claims are in the same geologic and mining region where FMC is producing lithium at its world-renowned Hombre Muerto mine. The claims span 15,267 hectares (59 square miles) and include its recently acquired Ratones and Fraile claims, as well as two lithium mine rights covering the southern portions of the Carachi Pampa salar in the Province of Catamarca. A competitor has three drills working to the north on the same salar, and it has announced favorable drilling results with significant lithium assay runs of 250 mg/l. These aquifers of lithium rich brines don’t respect claim boundaries and are expected to run well into Marifil’s claims. The company is now reviving an exploration program, which was previously conducted in 2009. The program explored for lithium in Salta and Catamarca provinces. It staked 12 properties covering some 61,500 hectares (237 square miles) and generated a large proprietary geologic and geochemical database that is providing the basis for resumption of Marifil’s lithium exploration program.
Marifil’s interests also include its Las Aguilas property in San Luis province, which hosts a nickel-copper-cobalt deposit spanning more than four contiguous patented mining claims. The property, which is wholly owned by Marifil, is the largest known nickel/cobalt deposit in Argentina. It has been the subject of two Canadian National Instrument 43-101 reports – one by Wardrop Engineering concluding that there is about 4.6 million tonnes of combined Indicated plus Inferred resources of 0.41 percent Ni, 0.41 percent Cu and 0.03 percent Co with about 0.6 g/t Au+Pt+Pd (not compliant with US SEC Guideline 7 resource reporting). The deposit offers possibilities for expansion by drilling, and one old drill hole 3.5 kilometers north of Las Aguilas on Marifil’s parented Virorco claim hit a 90-meter intersection of sulfides containing low grade nickel and cobalt. Marifil believes that by continued drilling this could be the making of a new deposit, perhaps even larger than Las Aguilas.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.MarifilMines.com
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