Radius Gold Inc. and Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. announced to present an update on the first-pass drilling campaign that is ongoing at the Motagua Norte Project. Drilling to date has confirmed that the broad area of boulder float with abundant visible gold and bonanza grade assay results discovered by Volcanic geologists is underlain by a serpentinite package, and that all of the colluvial boulders of quartz and schists bearing the high-grade gold values have likely moved downslope from a major structural corridor that the JV has named the Veta Madre Fault Zone. The Veta Madre Fault contains a wide quartz vein that has been known for some time, and where sampled, has returned relatively high silver and lead results but poor gold numbers.

It is a massive vein, forming in places a vertical, impassable wall. Flute marks and slickensides on the vein show near-vertical fault movement. However, in the area uphill from the Mila quartz float field, the vein is not exposed.

The drill program conducted to date has cut 6 m to 15 m of colluvium composed of quartz and schist float, bearing visible gold in places, before passing from this colluvium into a serpentinite package. With the drill data in hand it appears that the green schists and serpentinite contact is at the Veta Madre fault Zone, and the Mila zone within this major structural corridor is the target to be tested. Drilling of this target is underway and drill pads are being prepared along the strike of the structure.

This presents an exciting picture: the Motagua Norte project has geological similarities to the Motherlode and Grassy Valley type orogenic systems of California, hosted in metamorphic rocks along plate boundary faults, often in close association with serpentine rocks. These systems are known for quartz veining with coarse visible gold and high-grade ore shoots, that can have extensive vertical depth components. For example: the historic Empire Mine in California was mined to over 1km depth and produced 5.8Moz at an average grade of 19 g/t Au.

As companies previously reported, the Mila discovery presents an unusual challenge for exploration but an exceptional opportunity. The abundance of gold-mineralized quartz boulders covering the surface makes it difficult to map-out, measure and model the gold mineralized structures. Of approximately 420 rock chip samples collected at surface across the area over one hundred returned assays exceeding 10 g/t gold, including twenty-one of over 100 g/t gold and a maximum of 692 g/t gold.

With widely distributed gold-bearing quartz at surface it is difficult to distinguish the in-situ quartz outcrop from boulder scree that has been locally transported downhill. In addition to the obvious quartz vein mineralization, gold has also been observed hosted within sericite altered and micro-veined schist with samples returning assay results of up to 94 g/t gold, indicating potential for significant wall rock mineralization.