Location: Guerrero, Mexico
Ownership: 100%
Metals: Gold
Royalty: 2%
Mine: Underground (with open pit mine permits)
The Ana Paula Project is a gold development project in Guerrero State, Mexico. Ana Paula encompasses several gold occurrences within an exploration concession covering an area of almost six hundred square kilometres. Heliostar published an updated mineral resource estimate on November 27, 2023.
The Ana Paula Project is located in the north central part of the state of Guerrero in southern Mexico, halfway between Mexico City and the Port of Acapulco. The project lies within the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountain range where topography can range from moderate to rugged with elevations varying from 900 to over 1,460 meters above sea level. The Balsas River, which divides the Sierra Madre del Sur Mountains into north and south ranges, flows just south of the project area.
Ana Paula has 43-101 compliant resource and reserve estimates in place from an updated 2023 Mineral Resource Estimate.1
Economically significant gold deposits of the 55 km long northwest trend of the Guerrero Gold Belt (GGB) are controlled by a variety of structural and lithologic settings and largely occur in clusters directly associated with a northwest-trending suite of early Tertiary calc-alkalic intrusions. The GGB straddles a boundary between two older tectonic sub-terranes; a volcanic-volcaniclastic arc assemblage to the west and a thick carbonate platform sequence overlain by younger marine deposits to the east. Ana Paula is located at the northwest end of the GGB.
The stratigraphy of both sub-terranes that comprise the GGB was deformed during the compressive Laramide orogeny and subsequently intruded by a ±62-66-million-year calc-alkalic magmatic event that is currently thought to be associated with the timing of mineralization responsible for the gold deposits and showings of the GGB.
The geologic units underlying the Ana Paula Project are primarily sedimentary rocks composed of interbedded limestones, shales and thin waterlain tuffs along with carbonaceous limestones that have been intruded by intermediate sills, dikes and stocks.
Five principal geological domains within Ana Paula Deposit have been recognized:
In general, four gold depositional settings are recognized at Ana Paula, including:
The veinlets, stockwork, clots and disseminated mineralization, along with the contact replacement textures, (settings 1, 3 and 4 above) are commonly observed within the intrusive and sediment domains that collectively make up a corridor of structurally-controlled, northerly-trending, and west-dipping marine sediments and intrusive sill / dyke stratigraphy that is host to widespread lower grade mineralization.
The bulk of the high-grade mineralization at Ana Paula occurs in the Polymictic Breccia domain. This lithological unit consists of a core of polymictic breccia in an east-west trending, steeply south plunging column, surrounded by local high-grade mineralization which is characterized by veinlets, fracture zones, and massive sulphides along contact replacement zones. Outboard of that high grade zone is a large area of low-grade mineralization of similar but more widespread veinlets, fractures and contact replacement zones.
The vertical extent of the Polymictic Breccia domain has been modelled to a depth of 950 m below surface and it is currently unconstrained by due to lack of deep drilling. Horizontally, the high-grade mineralization (the High Grade Panel) extends approximately 300 m east – west and is 60 to 80 m thick near surface. This High Grade Panel extends 100 m down-plunge, mainly within the Polymictic Breccia domain. Mineralization is continuous, and grade tends to be highest in the center of the Polymictic Breccia but extends out into the sediments, intrusive, and skarn / hornfels lithologies, with grade decreasing with distance away from the center.
