Aztec Minerals Corp. and Kootenay Silver Inc. announce that reverse circulation drilling has commenced at the Cervantes porphyry gold-copper property in Sonora, Mexico. The JV plans to drill a 22 hole, 5,000 m reverse circulation drill program over the next three months to test four main targets.

View: Cervantes Proposed Phase 2 RC Drilling Plan: At the California target, where Aztec previously discovered extensive oxide porphyry gold-copper mineralization (drill intercepts up to 0.77 gpt gold over 160m), the JV will drill 14 infill and step-out holes at a 50m spacing to expand and better define the area of mineralization, followed by two 500m deep holes to test the depth extent of the strong IP chargeability anomaly. At the California North prospect, one hole will test the coincident IP chargeability and gold-copper-molybdenum soil geochemical anomaly. At the Jasper prospect, one hole will test the outcropping copper mineralization and copper-molybdenum soil geochemical anomaly.

At the Purisima East target, six holes will test the high grade gold mineralization in the Glory Hole mine working area and coincident IP chargeability and gold-copper-molybdenum soil geochemical anomaly within a breccia along the rim of a brecciated QFP porphyry intrusion. The primary objectives of the drilling program are to better define the near surface, oxide gold potential of the porphyry gold oxide cap at California, evaluate the potential for deeper copper-gold porphyry sulfide mineralization underlying the oxide cap, test for north and west extensions of the California mineralization at California North and Jasper, and assess the breccia potential of Purisima East.