Comstock Mining Intercepts High-grade Gold at Lucerne

Comstock Mining Inc.’s (NYSE:LODE) initial drilling on the Eastside of the Lucerne yielded higher-grade gold intercepts that further define a near-surface, broadening zone of high-grade gold mineralization.

As quoted in the press release:

Table 1: Summary of Drill Program

These results represent significant progress towards the first major objective in the 2014-2015, exploration and development drilling program (the ‘Program’), representing a comprehensive drilling and evaluation of high priority targets including the Succor and Holman. All data to date suggests these claims have excellent potential for economic mining and metal recovery.

… The Company commenced production in 2012, from a surface mining operation along a half-mile long segment of the Silver City branch of the lode and, in 2014, began shifting to the exploration and development of near-surface indicators of the mineralized systems. The Company’s current resource estimate does not include any of the 2014 and 2015 drill holes.

Lucerne’s eastern exploration commenced in December 2014, with the completion of 89 drill holes in an area encompassed by the historic Succor and Holman mines. In the case of both mines, mineralization takes the form of moderately dipping quartz-calcite stock-work veining within the Miocene Alta Andesite formation.

The primary objective of the Eastside drilling program was to accurately define the known mineralization in the Succor and Holman areas because surface outcrops are limited. Drill hole spacing was also tightened where practical to 50 feet or less in order to gauge previously mined stopes such that meaningful volumes and tonnages could be derived. The drilled strike lengths along the Succor and Holman zones totaled approximately 700 feet and 575 feet, respectively. The average depth of drilling was 100 feet.

This drill program was intended to complement previous work from 2011 and 2012 which generated significant drill intercepts up to 300 feet down-dip on a portion of the Succor mineralized system. Additional drilling on both the Succor and the Holman is required to define the extent and continuity of mineralization below depths of 100 feet. Due to the shallow nature of the drill program, CMI utilized a standard blast-hole rig for maximum efficiency. Sampling procedures typically involved collecting the entire sample over 5 or 10 foot sample intervals, followed by coning and quartering the entire sample to obtain 7 to 10 pound representative splits. All samples were analyzed for gold and silver at the Company’s existing, on-site production assay lab utilizing standard fire assay techniques. The laboratory protocol includes the regular use of blanks and standards.

Comstock Mining CEO Corrado De Gasperis, said:

These near-surface drill results represent exceptionally higher grades than our current average mine grades, with a significant number of intercepts grading higher than 0.100 ounce per ton of gold and higher than 0.500 ounce per ton of silver. We also had multiple near surface hits grading higher than a quarter (0.250) ounce per ton of gold and over one (1.00) ounce per ton of silver, with outstanding potential for expanding our mine plans.

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