Southern Silver says drilling started at Dragoon, unveils Oro assays

Southern Silver Exploration Corp. (CVE:SSV) said Thursday that drilling has been started at the Dragoon project southeast of Tucson, Arizona by the company's optionee, Freeport-McMoRan Exploration Corp.
The current drill hole follows two previous deep holes on the project by Freeport, which tested a gravel covered area of prospective stratigraphy along the main range-front fault at the base of the Dragoon Mountains.
The current hole, DS-12-03, is located approximately 175 metres to the north of hole DS-11-02 and is expected to test to depths of about 1000 metres, Southern Silver said.
Previous hole DS-11-02 intersected more than 500 metres of variably altered and mineralized  Paleozoic marbles and porphyritic Laramide intrusive.
The company said quartz veining and variable amounts of copper and molybdenum sulphides occured through much of the target interval, which averaged 0.06% copper over 527 metres in the lower part of the drill hole.
Only four previous drill holes tested the property below 600 metres, and the mineralizing system remains open below that depth.
Southern Silver said it believes that these results, together with other historical data, suggest the presence of a large, deep-seated copper porphyry system disrupted by post-mineral faulting.
The Dragoon property is a contiguous block of 12.8 square kilometres that consists of 68 unpatented mining claims and four state leases located in southeast Arizona.
The property contains areas of exposed copper-molybdenum mineralization, Laramide-age porphyry and "leached capping" in the eastern part of the property.
Southern Silver has the right to earn a 100 percent interest in the property by paying $300,000 by August 2012 and Freeport has the right to earn a 70 percent stake, by spending $3 million in exploration and development expenses by December 31, 2012.
Separately, Southern Silver also reported Thursday assay results from four core holes on its Oro copper-gold property in southwest New Mexico.
Two holes were drilled near the central, highly altered portion of the Oro property, and the third and fourth holes were drilled on the periphery of the five by 2.5 kilometre alteration zone.
Hole OR11-006 intersected 9.1 metres of 0.37% copper, within a 43 metre interval averaging 0.14% copper. A second 50 metre interval averaging 0.1% copper was intersected deeper in the hole.
Meanwhile, hole OR11-007 was drilled 520 metres northwest of OR11-006 and encountered anomalous arsenic and gold, with a high value of 0.90 grams gold per tonne over 0.8 metres.
The other two holes contained only anomalous metal values.
Southern Silver is evaluating the results and is planning an IP geophysical survey to further delineate drill targets.
Mapping and sampling outside the main altered area at Oro has identified the Stockpond disseminated gold target, which was recently staked by Southern Silver. This new shallow gold target is defined by 14 samples, all of which returned anomalous gold assays from 0.062 to 4.8 g/t gold. Eight of the 14 samples contained more than 0.4 g/t Au.
The outcrops are within an area measuring approximately 250 by 150 metres. Permitting of this target is nearly complete, the company said, with an initial phase of trenching anticipated on the project followed by drilling in 2012.
The Oro project comprises a contiguous block of Federal, State and Private land totaling 17.2 square kilometres in the historic Eureka mining district in southwest New Mexico.
Southern Silver has the right to earn a 100 percent interest in the property by paying a total of $225,000 to private vendors by December 2012.