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On May 7, 2019 Max signed a binding letter of intent with Noble Metals Limited and Buena Fortuna Mining Company Pty Ltd. to acquire up to 100% of their interest in Andagueda Mining Pty Ltd. which holds an exploration and mining agreement with the Tahami Indigenous Reservation of Alto Andagueda (“TAHAMI”) for the North Choco Gold-Copper Project (“North Choco”).
North Choco is located to the northeast of Max’s 2,140 sq. km Choco Gold-Platinum Project (“Choco”), about 100km SW of Medellin, Colombia and on trend with other prospective properties. The property encompasses 500 sq. km of TAHAMI land area and includes exploration and development of economic mineral resources on Indigenous Communities Mining Zone 8-1704 covering 6535.7 hectares and Mining Concession BAE-112 covering 720.6 hectares.
In January 2019 the Andagueda exploration team made a reconnaissance visit to the North Choco property and collected 14 samples from historic gold mines on the property including the following channel samples:
North Choco is located 47 km southwest of AngloGold Ashanti’s Nuevo Chaquiro porphyry copper discovery:
Historic government surveys suggest the North Choco project has excellent potential for porphyry copper.
Max cautions investors as it has not yet verified the Andagueda and AngloGold sampling data. Max further cautions investors mineralization on the Nuevo Chaquiro property is not necessarily indicative of similar mineralization at North Choco.
Through the acquisition of Andagueda, North Choco will add 500 sq. km will bring its consolidated landholdings to 2,640 sq. km. As the map indicates North Choco is contiguous to properties held by AngloGold Ashanti and Continental Gold and is located approximately 80km SE of the City of Medellin, Colombia.
The geology of the North Choco project consists of Cretaceous mudstones to sandstone in the east and Palecone to Eocene basalts, breccias, agglomerates and tuffs in the west. These units are intruded by the monzonites and tonalites of the Miocene Farallones batholith. Presently known mineralization, largely quartz veins, is hosted in the basalts and the intrusive, with historic exploration confined to the 720.6-hectare mining lease.
In 2005, AngloGold Ashanti conducted a site visit targeting the copper porphyry potential of North Choco, which resulted in the identification of pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, sphalerite and arsenopyrite, in a matrix of quartz and calcite from historic gold mines and copper porphyry prospects. However, AngloGold was unable to follow up the anomalies because of land access restrictions.
Mina Morron (identified on Map 2) has been explored and mined since the late 1800’s, with production periods in 1929-1930 and 1948-1968.
AngloGold’s Nuevo Chaquiro deposit is located on trend and 47km NE of North Choco and was a blind discovery resulting from identification porphyry style alteration and mineralization during follow up of a regional stream sediment sampling survey. The discovery was the result of a systematic stream sediment geochemistry survey initiated in 2004. Follow up of a modest localized gold anomaly led to identification of the “Discovery Outcrop” in 2005. In 2014 AngloGold reported an initial inferred resource of 604Mt at 0.65% copper and 0.32g/t gold for contained metal content of 3.95Mt of copper and 6.13Moz of gold. This is one of five known porphyry centres concentrated within a 15 sq. km area.
The geology of Nuevo Chaquiro consists of Miocene tuffs, andesites, basalts and agglomerates intruded by small stocks and dykes of Miocene diorites and quartz diorites.
Andagueda conducted a reconnaissance visit of the North Choco property in January 2019. Their focus was on the property’s historic gold mines, taking 14 channel samples and four chip samples, 7 of 14 samples assayed above 1 g/t and up to 262 g/t gold, plus copper graded up to 11.4%.
The exploration team is currently at North Choco completing preliminary exploration. It is mapping and sampling the historic Mina Morron, Mina Paloma and Mine La Esmeralda gold mines and sampling other Colonial occurrences within both the mining area and the TAHAMI Community Area.
After completing the preliminary exploration phase, exploration will focus on a property wide stream sediment sampling and prospecting program with the assistance of members of the greater TAHAMI community. The community members will be able to guide the Max geologists to outcrop and mineralization locations handed down generation to generation. The methodology of the program will be similar to the effective program utilized by AngloGold Ashanti that lead to the Nuevo Chaquiro discovery.
