Exploration Underway at Centenera's El Quemado Pegmatite Project, Salta Province, Argentina

Vancouver, British Columbia — Centenera Mining Corporation (the “Company”) – (TSXV:CT, OTCQB: CTMIF), reports that exploration is underway at the Company’s El Quemado Tantallum-Niobium-Bismuth-Lithium Pegmatite Project (“El Quemado” or the “Project”) in Salta Province, northwest Argentina. A definitive option agreement in respect of the Project was signed on August 31, 2016 following completion of due diligence by the Company and the agreement was accepted for filing by the TSX Venture on September 15, 2016.
Planning, acquisition and mobilization of supplies for the exploration camp has been ongoing for the past month. The camp is expected to be fully operational with exploration underway in the coming days. As previously disclosed, the Company plans to complete geological mapping, prospecting and sampling of the Project before the end of 2016.
Work Program
Work will initially focus on the former producing El Quemado mine as well as the El Penon and Santa Elena prospects (Figure 1) located within a few kilometers of the former producing El Quemado mine. Work will also focus on channel sampling across pegmatite zones to define mineralization within the zoned deposits as well as characterization samples from waste dumps. As the program progresses, the geologists are expected to expand their work south towards the Tres Tetas prospect.
Project Details
Several known pegmatite occurrences are located within the Property, most of which have seen some historical exploitation. The Project includes the historic El Quemado small-scale mine, a former tantalum-producing operation where Minera Anzotana Co. produced niobium-tantalum concentrates. Historical records indicate that tantalum-niobium oxide concentrate grades ranging from 7.16% to 53.85% (average 39.65%) tantalum and from 3.7% to 69.14% (average 20.98%) niobium in 11 concentrate shipments.
Despite historical production, no systematic modern exploration has been undertaken and the occurrences have never been drilled or been the subject of formal resource estimation, although historical estimates do exist in the literature. Most historical information dates from 1943, when the deposits were first exploited through to 1981. Pegmatites are reportedly 4 meters to 40 meters thick in the Santa Elena area, west of El Quemado.
The recent study of the El Quemado pegmatites (Marquez-Zavalia & Galliski 2012, Canadian Mineralogist paper) describes tantalum and bismuth minerals in the El Quemado system, which is a spodumene (lithium) subtype, rare element class granitic pegmatite. The 2012 study revealed systematic zoning; a. border zone; b. wall zone; c. outer intermediate zone; d. inner intermediate zone; e. core zone (Plate 1). Tantalum occurs throughout all zones while lithium (spodumene) is concentrated in the inner intermediate zone (d.). Outcrop is described as sparse in the area, with most of the pegmatites under shallow cover.