Drill samples were shipped to and received by Bureau Veritas Minerals laboratory for geochemical analysis and results are anticipated in the next three weeks. 

Four holes were drilled in a spoke pattern to test the central segment of the north-trending main Contention structure, which hosts the historic underground and open pit Contention mine. All four holes intersected old mine workings and pervasively oxidized and hematite-rich, silicified hydrothermal breccias composed of quartz feldspar porphyry dike and Bisbee group clastic sedimentary fragments, typical of the Contention mine mineralisation.

Manganese-rich quartz veins and breccias and limestone recrystalized and altered to hornfels and weak skarn were also intersected. The deepest hole was drilled to 230m (200m vertical) and remained in oxidized rocks the whole way.

An additional hole was drilled southeast of the main Contention pit to test for parallel mineralised zones and intersected two separate structures with quartz-carbonate alteration.

The historic Tombstone silver district is renowned for its high grade, oxidized, silver-gold-lead-zinc-copper epithermal and CRD mineralization hosted in veins, mantos, pipes and disseminated orebodies that were mined in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Aztec holds an option to acquire a 75 per cent interest in the Tombstone property, which includes many of the original patented mining claims in the district. The main target of the current RC drill programme is to test for shallow, bulk tonnage, heap leachable, epithermal gold-silver oxide mineralisation adjacent and below the previously mined Contention pit. 

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