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Almaden Minerals Provides Ixtaca Project Exploration Update
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almaden Minerals Ltd. (“Almaden” or “the Company”; TSX: AMM; NYSE American: AAU) is pleased to an
About this update from Almaden Minerals Ltd.
[{"type":"text","content":" VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almaden Minerals Ltd. (“Almaden” or “the Company”; TSX: AMM; NYSE American: AAU) is pleased to announce that it has completed a surface induced polarisation geophysical (IP) program at the Ixtaca deposit, Mexico (see Figure 1, Ixtaca Alteration Map). The work was designed to help define drill targets beneath the area of hydrothermal alteration called the Southeast Alteration (SE) zone and at depth beneath the Ixtaca deposit (“Ixtaca Deeps”). The data from this survey are currently being processed and combined with geologic, geochemical and geophysical data collected in the past. It is hoped that these results, will identify more discrete drill targets for a future diamond drill program to test for potential blind zones of veining beneath the SE alteration zone. The discovery drill hole in the original Ixtaca deposit area, which is mostly covered by overlying clay alteration similar to that in the SE alteration zone, was planned in part based on high resistivity and chargeability results obtained in an earlier IP geophysical survey. The Company looks forward to updating shareholders further once drilling plans are defined. Background to the SE Alteration Zone The SE Alteration Zone comprises white argillic (clay-altered) volcanics and, most interestingly, clusters of anomalies identified from a hyperspectral survey that include the spectral signatures of important epithermal alteration minerals such as kaolinite, alunite and buddingtonite. The SE Alteration Zone lies well outside of the current Ixtaca deposit resource area. In November, 2020, the Company announced the discovery of several areas of veining cropping out within the SE Alteration Zone, and seventeen samples of the veining were collected and submitted for analysis to ALS Global in Zacatecas, Mexico. All but one sample returned below detection gold and silver, with the exception returning a value of 62 ppb gold. However, even though the outcrops are leached and weathered, many of the samples also returned elevated values for epithermal pathfinder elements which are commonly found in the higher parts of epithermal alteration zones. The presence of pathfinder elements in these samples is very encouraging as it corroborates the Company view that the SE Alteration Zone could represent the higher levels of a po...