Defiance Silver drills 264.29 g/t silver over 3.05 metres at Lucita, Mexico

Defiance Silver Corp. [DEF-TSXV; DNCVF-OTCQX] reported a second update on the 4,750-metre maiden drill program at the Lucita property on the company’s Zacatecas silver project in Mexico, including additional newly discovered zones of high-grade silver mineralization. This drill program was the first to be undertaken at the central Lucita project (Palenque vein system), which is currently under option from Pan American Silver Corp. [PAAS-TSX, NASDAQ]. Initial results from this program were released on April 13, 2022.

The current release summarizes the results from an additional eight holes (DDLU-21-06 to DDLU-21-13). The drill holes reported in this release encountered several styles of high-grade silver mineralization, including the classic vein-hosted style and blind, newly discovered contact-style mineralization at depth. The encountered mineralization is open along strike and both up and down dip from the released results, which are highly encouraging and warrant extensive follow-up exploration work, including diamond drilling.

Chris Wright, chairman and CEO, stated: “Our team has been successful at identifying both near-surface and high-grade, vein-hosted silver mineralization, as well as a blind silver-rich zone that is over 45 metres wide, encountered in hole DDLU-22-10. The drilling within the central Lucita licence area has demonstrated the continuity of the Palenque vein system over a four-kilometre vein corridor. This vein system represents an emerging discovery in a world-class silver mining district.”

DDSA-22-10 discovered several different styles of mineralization, including a new blind high-grade interval at depth. The hole returned multiple results over 100 g/t silver and individual intercepts grade up to 737 g/t silver (from 398 m). Intercepts include 3.05 metres of 264 g/t Ag and 0.20 g/t Au (gold) (from 370.23 to 373.28 m), 4.01 metres of 166 g/t Ag and 0.37 g/t Au (from 388.56 m to 392.57 m), and 2.25 metres of 235 g/t Ag (from 398 to 400.25 m).

DDSA-22-10 also returned highly anomalous silver mineralization from 370.23 metres to the end of the hole at 420.1 metres, with a 49.87-metre interval returning a weighted average of 58.79 g/t Ag. This new zone is open for expansion and will be a key follow-up target in future drill programs.

DDSA-22-09 was drilled prior to DDSA-22-10 and hit anomalous veins, but was stopped short of the mineralized zones encountered in DDSA-22-10. Additional targeting work will be completed, and deeper follow-up drilling will be planned with the goal of reaching the newly discovered zone of mineralization.

DDLU-22-12 returned high-grade zinc-lead mineralization and moderate-grade silver mineralization over narrow widths (0.28 m of 86.30 g/t Ag, 2.63% lead and 8.08% zinc from 364.54 to 364.82 m) and represents a follow-up drill target once additional targeting and modelling work has been completedFurther exploratory drilling in the Palenque central zone (DDLU-22-13) encountered narrow zones of high-grade mineralization, including up to 843 g/t Ag and 0.2 g/t Au from 184 metres to 184.30 metres.

The inaugural drill program at Lucita central (Palenque vein system) confirmed the presence of high-grade, Fresnillo-style, low- to intermediate-sulphidation epithermal silver mineralization, consisting of mainly of pyrargyrite (high-level sulphosalt) and silver sulphides that potentially indicate the higher-level setting of a zoned epithermal system. Follow-up drilling is planned for later this year at the newly discovered zones of mineralization at Palenque and Tahures.

Regional targeting done by Defiance in late 2019 and early 2020 identified the potential for a Fresnillo-style low- to intermediate-sulphidation epithermal system on the Lucita land package, which is in a similar crustal-scale setting as the world-class Fresnillo district. The first-pass 4,750 m diamond drilling program on the Palenque and Tahures vein systems was completed earlier in 2022, with the aim of conducting follow-up drilling in this area later in 2022.

The Lucita project is a large land package in the prolific Fresnillo-Zacatecas mining district. In December, 2020, Defiance Silver entered into an option agreement with Pan American Silver to acquire a 100-per-cent ownership of the Lucita property (see news release dated: Dec. 2, 2020).

The 2,674-hectare Lucita property consists of the Panuco zone in the north, the central Lucita zone (Palenque vein system) and the southern Lucita zone adjacent to Defiance’s San Acacio project. The mineralization within the Lucita land package is characterized as low- to intermediate-sulphidation epithermal Ag-Au veins, breccias and stockwork.

Defiance also reports that it intends to settle up to $18,250 of debt through the issuance of up to 50,000 common shares of the company at a deemed price of 39.5 cents per share to a creditor of the company.