Arizona Gold & Silver Inc. announces it has commenced initial column leach test work on the Philadelphia Gold-Silver Property, located in Mohave County, Arizona. The Company has submitted 429 kilograms of bulk material from two sample sites for testing at McClelland Laboratories Inc. in Sparks, Nevada. These sample represent the two dominant metallurgical types present on the property: stockwork quartz in dominantly TR2 rhyolite and stockwork quartz in dominantly granite. The test work will consist of three columns from each bulk sample at crush sizes of -1/4 inch (6.3mm), -3/8 inch (9.5mm) and -1/2 inch (12.5mm) particle size. Bottle roll leach tests will also be done on -10 mesh material. Tails analyses will be included to assess ultimate gold and silver extractions and reagent consumption. Load permeability tests after completion of the leach cycle will assess potential heap heights under each crush size scenario. Previous column leach tests completed in the 1980's by Mountains States R&D Labs in Tucson, Arizona demonstrated good gold extractions after only a 19-day leach cycle for the above crush sizes. The test work returned gold recoveries of 58.5-91% after only 19 days of leaching, after which the tests were terminated.
Silver extractions were not reported. The current program will determine the leach extractions over a period of 90-120 days for each column, in locked cycle to simulate actual heap leach conditions. Extrapolating the leach curves from the Mountain States R&D test work to 90 days suggests should expect ultimate extractions of 70% to 90% for test work.