VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - March 10, 2011) - Southern Silver Exploration Corp. (News - Market indicators)(FRANKFURT:SEG) reported today that a preliminary 3,000 metre Diamond drill program has commenced at the Company's Cerro Las Minitas project in Durango State, Mexico. The 10,980 hectare project includes a 425 hectare area that has been the subject of historic small-scale mining and a much larger unexplored gravel covered area.
The company said it has completed a 1,100 line kilometre airborne magnetic survey over the property and additional IP geophysics, which is ongoing, has developed a significant number of targets that will be tested in the drill program. The initial program will focus on four main target areas and will probe for both high-grade, silver-rich polymetallic replacements and copper-gold skarn targets distributed along the margins of the central intrusion.
Limited historical drilling on the project by Noranda (not independently verified by Southern Silver) returned numerous intervals of higher grade silver and base metals, including a 11.45 metre interval (down hole) grading 123g/t silver, 1.55% lead and 7.79% zinc from drill hole NGV-00-02 and a 1.41 metre interval (down hole) grading 529g/t silver, 6.99% lead and 1.27% zinc from drill hole NGV-00-06.
President Lawrence Page noted that, "Only a small portion of the property is exposed and the recent airborne and on-going surface geophysics have identified potentially significant unexplored gravel covered targets along some of the 25 kilometre strike-length. The Cerro Las Minitas project is ideally located in Mexico's famed Faja de Plata where more than three billion ounces of silver reserves/resources have been produced and developed in multiple world-class mineral deposits," he said.
About the Cerro Las Minitas property
The Cerro Las Minitas property comprises 17 concessions which total 10,980 hectares and an approximate 25 kilometre lineal strike length.
Mining has been conducted on the property since colonial times and has identified several types of silver-, lead- and zinc-enriched massive-sulphide pipes, veins and carbonate-replacement deposits (CRDs), as well as mineralized skarns at the margins of a large intrusive body. The Santa Eulalia replacement deposit (45Mt of 310g/t Ag, 7.1% Zn and 8.2% Pb) and the skarn deposit of San Martin (60Mt of 118g/t silver, 0.9% copper and 3.9% zinc) are examples of two major Mexican mines occurring in similar geological environments(1). The mineralized zones at Cerro Las Minitas have been exploited to depths of 300 metres and over widths of 60 metres.
About Southern Silver Exploration Corp.
Southern Silver Exploration Corp. is an emerging precious/base metal exploration company and a member of the Manex Resource Group; a private company comprised of an exceptional multi-disciplinary team of professionals with specific expertise in all the areas of exploration, development, corporate finance and public company administration.
The company's growth strategy is to acquire, explore and develop high-quality properties in progressive jurisdictions within North America. Its current projects include the silver-lead-zinc Cerro Las Mintas project, copper-gold-silver Minas de Ameca, the porphyry copper-molybdenum Dragoon project in Arizona and the gold-silver Oro project in New Mexico.
Robert Macdonald (P.Geo) is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical contents of this release.
(1) Southern Silver advises that tonnage and grade of adjacent properties or those used for comparative purposes may not reflect the ultimate potential of the Cerro Las Minitas project.
On behalf of the Board of Directors
Lawrence Page, President, Southern Silver Exploration Corp.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
