Argenta Project

The Argenta project is located in the southwest of the Deseado Massif, adjacent to the Martha silver mine, and in the Cerro Primero de Abril metallogenic district. The project contains several sets of epithermal quartz veins, with a summed total length of 11 km. Some of the veins also contain adularia.

The area of the project is secured by four mining properties covering almost 11,000 hectares. Most of the project had already been explored by other companies before Fomicruz S.E. reclaimed the mining rights in 2015.

Initially, Fomicruz evaluated exploration targets by combining and interpreting its own data, as well as data collected by the previous holder of the mining rights; that included geological, geophysical and geochemical data.

In 2016, the Company carried out more exploratory work that included geological mapping, rock chip sampling and the completion of 2262 m of diamond drilling, in 16 boreholes, which were drilled in 6 sectors of the project.

The drilling demonstrated that the veins are continuous up to a vertical depth of at least 201 m, and that their thickness are similar to those at ground surface. At the same time, topography and surface geology were surveyed in the sectors where the drilling was done. Assays from several boreholes returned anomalous concentrations of Au and Ag in the veins; some of those are shown in the following table.

In 2023, Fomicruz carried out additional exploration work in the project, collecting abundant data that is being interpreted. That work included detailed mapping of several veins; recognizance of some areas that had not been previously visited; a ground-based magnetometric survey covering the whole project; the collection of rock samples for geochemical analyses (more than 500 samples in total), as well as samples for being analyzed by a portable x-ray spectrometer and a reflectance spectrometer.

In addition, more than 2800 ha were surveyed with a gamma-ray spectrometer, mapping the contents of potassium and thorium, to test their ability to detect potassic alteration and the presence of adularia. In general, that survey showed spatial correlation of high potassium contents with several veins, particularly with those where adularia was observed.