Orko Silver Corp. (CVE:OK) says it has started a field exploration program on the Esmeralda targets area of its La Preciosa silver-gold project in Durango, Mexico.
The Esmeralda Targets area, located 12 kilometres northwest of Orko's La Preciosa deposit, consists of a series of major fault controlled blocks, the company said Wednesday, with three historic mining workings called El Cristo, La Blanca and La Esmeralda.
"This is an important expansion of the exploration of Orko's large mineral land concessions in Durango," said president Gary Cope in a statement today.
"Reconnaissance studies have yielded interesting results worthy of more detailed field exploration."
The company said a structural geology mapping and geochemistry study will be taken over the six major fault controlled blocks in the area.
In terms of the historic workings, the El Cristo Mine, west of the village of Ricardo Flores Magon, has a north-south trending, 3 metre wide quartz-fluorite structure. It also has historic surface cuts over 150 metres, as well as a shaft and underground levels to about 40 metres depth.
The La Blanca Mine is located 1.8 kilometres north of El Cristo and contains a series of "narrow silicified and brecciated fractures", Orko said, exposed in several small pits and shafts.
The third historic working, the Esmeralda Mine, is located 3.7 kilometres northwest of El Cristo and has two small shafts and rock piles, about 500 metres apart. Rock samples taken in this area yielded elevated silver values, the company said, including one high sample at 515.3 grams per tonne.
There has been no previous drilling in the area, Orko added.
Orko Silver Corp. holds more than 32,000 hectares of mineral concessions on the Mesa Central, east of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, in the heart of the Mexican silver trend.
The company is in the process of updating its NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate at La Preciosa, one of the world's largest primary silver deposits, after which a new preliminary economic assessment will be prepared.
The previous estimate from August 2011 contained an indicated resource 126 million ounces of silver equivalent and inferred resource of 52 million silver equivalent ounces.
The company took over as operator of La Preciosa after former partner Pan American Silver (TSE:PAA) (NYSE:PAAS) decided to exit their joint venture in early April.
The August 2011 report showed an after-tax net present value of $315 million at a five percent discount rate for the project, and a 24.3 percent internal rate of return.
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