Southern Silver gives operational update for Mexico, Arizona properties

Southern Silver Exploration (CVE:SSV) gave Wednesday an update on its operations in Mexico and Arizona.
At its Cerro Las Minitas project in Mexico, diamond drilling with two core rigs continues, with one rig dedicated to the continued delineation of mineralization in the Blind and El Sol zones.
The second drill rig is testing specific occurrences located within the area of historic mining as well as several targets derived from the surface sampling and IP geophysical program.
The company said that several geological and geophysical targets are yet to be tested within this portion of the property.
Southern Silver has scheduled 20,000 metres of core drilling in 2012 at the property, with the aim of completing an NI 43-101 compliant resource on these first set of targets by the fourth quarter.
This will be the initial milestone toward the company's goal of delineating a larger, multi-million tonne, high-grade, silver-enriched polymetallic resource on the project.
Twenty-nine drill holes totaling approximately 8,030 metres were completed on the project in 2011. An additional 4,630 metres in 20 drill holes have been completed to date in 2012, with one additional hole is in progress.
Earlier this month, Southern Silver said it identified silver-enriched high-grade polymetallic mineralization in several separate target areas on its Cerro Las Minitas project.
The property comprises 18 concessions that total 15,125 hectares and an approximate 25 kilometre strike length.
Assay results from hole 12CLM-030 returned a 1.1 metre interval averaging 250 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, 10.7% lead and 16.95 zinc (1,007 g/t silver equivalent) at a vertical depth of approximately 270 metres.
For its Dragoon property in Arizona, the company reported Wednesday that optionee Freeport-McMoRan Exploration Corp. has completed a single drill hole at the project, which is located 90 kilometres southeast of Tucson.
The hole, DS-12-03, which is located around 175 metres to the north of hole DS-11-02, was drilled to a total depth of 1170 metres and is currently being logged and sampled. Assays are pending.
Separately, the company also said that at its annual general meeting held last week, directors Lawrence Page, Q.C., Scott Hean, Terrence Eyton, D. Roger Scammell, Dale Janowsky, Nazlin Rahemtulla, and Jean-Pierre Colin were all re-elected.
In addition, shareholders approved the company's rolling incentive stock option plan under which a maximum of 10 percent of the issued shares will be reserved for issuance under the plan.
The company also announced it has amended the previously announced unit offering and now plans to issue up to 41.7 million units at a price of $0.12 each, for gross proceeds of $5.0 million.
Each unit will consist of one common share and one share purchase warrant, with each warrant exercisable to purchase one additional common share for a period of three years at an exercise price of $0.17 per share.
The new funds from the offering will be used for exploration and property maintenance expenses incurred on the Cerro Las Minitas project, and the Oro gold-silver-copper project in New Mexico, USA.