San Marco Resources Inc. secured required permits from the Mexican environmental and natural resources ministry, Secretaria del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, to undertake additional exploration activities at its Chunibas gold project in Mexico.

The surface exploration program will continue until around Dec. 15 and will restart in mid-January 2017 after data review and budget approvals, the company said in a Dec. 13 release.

An extensive soil sampling program covering the primary mineralized area of 1.5 kilometers by 1.0 kilometer was conducted, and 850 samples were collected and submitted for analyses. San Marco anticipates announcing the final assay results in early January.

The sampling program aims to confirm covered projections of known mineralized structures, as well as new targets buried under the thin veneer of colluvial sediments that cover about 80% of the property.

Meanwhile, an additional 250 soil samples are being collected covering this expanded target footprint.

All rock chip and soil sample results will be integrated into a new geochemical map of the project area, which can then be used to generate new drill targets.