VANCOUVER, Canada, February 20, 2015, Sonoro Metals Corp., (“Sonoro” or the “Company”) (TSXV: SMO), announces that the previously reported historical estimate on the Pinos Property (“Pinos”) in Sonora State, Mexico was not disclosed in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 (“NI 43-101”) standards in the Company’s MD&A and in Company presentations. The Company is hereby providing the following clarification and expansion of prior statements regarding the Pinos Property. Also, further disclosure is provided on the exploration and testing procedures utilized at the Company’s Chipriona property, located six kilometers northeast of Pinos.
The Company’s MD&A contains disclosure of an historical estimate for Pinos by Cream Silver Mines Ltd., a Vancouver based company that worked on the property from 1988-1990. This Pinos historical estimate does not comply with historical estimates disclosure requirements set out in NI 43-101. The Company therefore retracts any prior disclosure of this historical estimate in its MD&A and will update future filings accordingly.
The Company hereby clarifies disclosure on the Pinos historical estimate found in Company presentations previously posted on the Company’s website. This uncategorized historical estimate of 743,938 tons @ 208 g/t silver, 2.93% lead, and 7.45% zinc was taken from a 1980 report by E. Dominguez (“Dominguez”), project geologist at that time for Servicios Industrias Peñoles (“Peñoles”) and was based on work done at the Pinos property at that time by Peñoles, mostly from data from nine drill holes totaling 1,342.95 meters outlining mineralization in three separate polymetallic vein zones, one in the Tajos zone and two veins at the Pinos zone. The method of calculation for the veins at the Pinos zone was stated so as to consider an average 1 meter wide vein incorporating a further 1 meter of dilution on both sides of the vein. The vein at the Tajos zone calculated a 5 meter wide vein zone with an additional 1 meter of dilution on each side of the vein zone. The Company cautions investors that a Qualified Person (within the meaning of NI 43-101) has not done sufficient work to classify this historical estimates as current mineral resources and should not be relied upon.
The Company also provides the following update to the historical estimate at Pinos. In 2008, an unrelated private Mexican company, Minera OPC (whose assets were subsequently acquired by Sonoro in 2011), contracted Dominguez to study and provide a technical report on the Pinos concession in order to update the work he performed at Pinos for Peñoles in 1980. Contract work by Dominguez for Minera OPC included additional surface work resulting from mapping and associated collection of 110 rock chip samples submitted, processed, and analyzed by Inspectorate Laboratory for 4 base metal elements with separate gold geochemical analysis. The additional information was incorporated into the Dominguez technical report along with the older Peñoles data and the historic resource completed for Peñoles in 1980. The report stated that the target of any future drilling was indicated by the surface presence of at least five mineralized veins and two stockwork zones.
Additional information on Pinos was acquired by Dominguez by reviewing open underground workings remaining from a three year development program carried out in 1988 to 1990 by Cream Silver Mines Ltd., consisting of several adits, underground stopes and crosscuts totaling, with older development, nearly 900 meters of workings. The Pinos mine produced an estimated 45,000 tonnes of mineralized rock that was processed in a small onsite 50 tonne per day flotation concentrator mill. Approximately 8,000 – 10,000 tonnes of tailings remain on the property. Little data is available from Cream Silver’s work in the mine nor is there a report of the amount and value of production from the mine.
Dominguez’ 2008 historic estimate contained three categories designated: “probadas, probable, and posibles” which were translated to “measured, indicated, and inferred” by Minera OPC. The historic total of 699,999 tonnes has been categorized as follows: 51,604 tonnes Measured with 125 grams Ag, 3.67% Pb, 4.32% Zn; 204,523 tonnes Indicated and 443,872 tonnes Inferred, both with 125 grams Ag, 3.67% Pb, 4.32% Zn.
These historical estimates are to be considered unreliable due to the older methods that did not use analytical checks and standards available compared to present exploration criteria to meet analytical and calculation methods required by NI 43-101 standards, particularly the standards of resource identification specified within Canadian Institute of Mining standards to define vein resources. Furthermore, in all disclosure relating to the historical estimate at Pinos, a Qualified Person has not conducted sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource and the Company is not treating the historical estimate as a current mineral resource.
However, the Company considers these historic estimates to be relevant, as they indicate the robust nature of mineralization and comparison showing similarity of the geologic setting with the historic Chipriona mine vein zone owned by the Company, six kilometers to the northeast. The age of mineralization is revealed to be the same based on being hosted in similar stratigraphic units with similar composition volcanic flows and tuffs of Eocene age. Mineralized materials at both the Chipriona mine and Pinos are similar in geochemical character and associated rock alteration assemblages indicating synergies may be possible between the two projects. Both have similar ranges of gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper based on the Dominguez study and the Chipriona technical report prepared by Calvin Church in 2011. The 2008 Dominguez report on the Pinos property shows the mineralized zones also have a definite association of mineralization with an altered quartz porphyry dike following a northwest trending shear zone.
The Pinos property is located within the greater Mulatos mining district where Agnico Eagle’s La India gold mine is located six kilometers to the east and Alamos Gold’s Mulatos gold mine is located about 17 kilometers to the southeast. The Company’s Qualified Person cautions that mineralization present on adjacent or nearby properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on the Pinos Property.
Furthermore, disclosure related to Sonoro’s nearby Chipriona property as presented in news releases dated August 18, 2014 and April 29, 2014 omitted reference to the analytical laboratory and testing procedures used for assay results. The information has been updated on the Company’s website and corporate presentation and will be included in future MD&A filings. For greater clarity, a summary of the results is provided as follows:
Chipriona is a shallow mesothermal type pyritic polymetallic mineralized zone, displaying epithermal features where the main elements of interest are contained in silver and gold with additional values in lead, copper and zinc. The strong sulfidic replacements are situated within shear zones and in and near porphyritic dikes with broad alteration zones with low grade disseminated halos to the sides of those main zones. Litho-geochemical sampling in 2009 documented the potential of the main Chipriona mineralized shear zone to host significant polymetallic mineralization. A total of 328 rock samples were collected, crossing the main mineralized shear zone on surface and in one underground exposure approximately 80 meters below surface within a significantly altered area measuring approximately 400 meters wide and almost 1,300 meters along strike. Surface sampling in 2009 across the main shear zone yielded results of 189 g/t silver and 0.71 g/t gold over 19.9 meters (including 1.6 meters of 1.61g/t gold and 562 g/t silver) and 100 g/t silver and 0.40 g/t gold over 20 meters. All surface sampling across zones consisted of continuous chip sampling perpendicular to the strike of the shear zone; sample lengths ranged from 0.8 meters to 3.0 meters in length. Sampling at the lowest underground level approximately 80 meters below surface returned values in one crosscut of 460 g/t silver and 0.64 g/t gold over 20 meters from three composite samples taken at the face of the working, oriented perpendicular to strike.
Samples collected from the 2008 work at Pinos and from the 2009 work at Chipriona were placed in 7.5” x 12” cloth or micropore drawstring sample bags and kept in a secure location on field sites, then delivered to preparation facilities in Hermosillo, Mexico. Sample weights varied from 2–3 kilograms. Hand held Garmin GPS instruments were used to obtain and record the UTM coordinate data based on the NAD 27 Mexico map datum. Rock samples were “prepped” by Inspectorate de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. where they were crushed to -10 mesh (2.0 mm), split to obtain a representative sample of about 250 grams, then pulverized to approximately 150 mesh (0.1 mm) in a chrome steel ring mill (Lab code 1-SP-01). Sample pulps were then shipped to Inspectorate Labs in Sparks, Nevada, USA for analysis. The samples were subjected to a gold + 35 element general package in 2009 by Inspectorate and the 2008 samples with the same preparation were submitted for 10 element analyses with ICP, GENX 10 package analysis. Samples were routinely analyzed by ICP-AES using a nitric acid-aqua regia (AR) digestion for the determination of elements, including Au Ag, As, Zn, Cu and Pb. All other elements were determined by multi-element ICP using a nitric acid-aqua regia (AR) digestion. Gold was determined by gold fire assay FA/AAS, silver determined by fire assay gravimetric FA/GRAV and mercury analyses determined by cold vapour atomic absorption. The sample rejects and pulps were short term stored at the lab facilities in Hermosillo and Sparks.
Stephen Kenwood, P. Geo. is a Qualified Person within the context of National Instrument 43-101 and has read and takes responsibility for this news release.
On behalf of the Board of SONORO METALS CORP.
Per: “Kenneth MacLeod”
KENNETH MACLEOD
President & CEO
Forward-Looking Statement Cautions:
This press release contains certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including statements regarding the completion of a proposed Offering and the use of the Offering proceeds to further explore the Company’s Cerro Caliche project. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “intends,” “estimates,” “projects,” “aims,” “potential,” “goal,” “objective,” “prospective,” and similar expressions, or that events or conditions “will,” “would,” “may,” “can,” “could” or “should” occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company’s management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management’s beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include the inability of the Company to secure sufficient subscriptions to complete the Offering, the risk of accidents and other risks associated with mineral exploration operations, the risk that the Company will encounter unanticipated geological factors, or the possibility that the Company may not be able to secure permitting and other governmental clearances, necessary to carry out the Company’s exploration plans, and the risk of political uncertainties and regulatory or legal changes in the jurisdictions where the Company carries on its business that might interfere with the Company’s business and prospects. The reader is urged to refer to the Company’s reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators’ System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects
THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL, OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY, NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY SALE OF SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SOLICITATION OR SALE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL PRIOR TO REGISTRATION OR QUALIFICATION UNDER THE SECURITIES LAWS OF ANY SUCH JURISDICTION.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.