Ross River starting El Pulpo exploration

Canada's Ross River Minerals (TSX-V: RRM) is starting a program this week of geological mapping, trenching, sampling and geochemical-geophysical surveys on its El Pulpo copper-gold project in Mexico's Sinaloa state, a company official told BNamericas. Program officials have arrived on site, and are ready to kick off the four-to-five week program, the official said Tuesday. The exploration will be followed by analyses to help determine the location and width of two copper-gold porphyry targets, Papaya and La Trucha, and diamond drilling next year, if deemed necessary. Ross River is earning a 60% interest in the 2000ha property from Vancouver-based Almaden Minerals (TSX: AMM) by spending US$3.0mn in exploration and issuing 425,000 shares to Almaden. Ross River has sampled Papaya and La Trucha, tracing two additional veins to the west and within 400m of the former. Random samples taken from Papaya, along a 2km-plus strike, returned average assays of 12.3g/t gold, 268g/t silver and 0.46% copper. Twenty-one samples taken from La Trucha average 8.64g/t gold, 358g/t silver and 1.12% copper, according to the company.