CMX Gold & Silver Corp. is advancing its 100%-owned Clayton Silver Mine, a past-producer situated in south-central Idaho, that operated for 50 years and has historically mined over two million tonnes of ore. The property has a stockpile of unprocessed rock estimated to be at least 1,000,000 tonnes. The Company successfully recovered concentrate from samples taken in 2022 from the stockpile. The concentrate was produced by TOMRA Systems ASA's precision ore-sorting system in Sydney, Australia. The test recovered at least 70% of the metals in sorted product comprised of about 10% of the initial mass. Compared to average grades documented in the Company's 2014 stockpile evaluation program, assays confirmed ore-sorting increased the silver grade by 6.4 times to 5.02 oz/t, and increased grades by 7 times for lead to 3.10% and zinc to 1.91%. When circumstances permit, the Company plans to install a custom TOMRA ore-sorting system on the Clayton property to process the stockpile. The timing of the ore-sorting project depends on when the system can be funded on terms acceptable to the Company.
Located approximately 30 km south-southwest of Challis in Custer County, central Idaho, the 1,028 acre property consists of 29 patented mining claims and two patented mills sites aggregating approximately 562 acres, and 20 unpatented mining claims adjacent to and surrounding the Company’s patented claims covering an additional 466 acres. The Clayton Silver Mine was developed on eight levels to a depth of 1,100 feet below surface and is comprised of approximately 19,690 feet of underground development. Two major ore bodies were partially mined: the “South Ore Body” and the “North Ore Body”. The recorded production from the Clayton Mine included 7,031,110 oz silver, 86,771,527 lbs lead, 28,172,211 lbs zinc, 1,664,177 lbs copper, and minor amounts of gold from an estimated 2,145,652 tonnes of ore mined between 1934 and 1985 (Hillman, Bob, M.S. Thesis, June 26, 1986, Eastern Washington University).
