Base Metals: Variscan uncovers more zinc potential at Spanish project

Variscan Mines’ (ASX:VAR) Spanish foray is looking good with a review and analysis of historical geochemistry data identifying multiple significant zinc anomalies at the Novales-Udias project.

These anomalies are scattered across and adjacent to historical zinc occurrences and small-scale underground mining, highlighting the potential scale of the project.

In the Brinia area, a peak soil geochemistry value of 17 per cent zinc was recorded near former workings while the Bustablado area returned substantial anomalies around Minas de Duna of up to 1km long and 500m wide that remain along strike.

Soil values at Minas de Duna reached up to 7 per cent zinc along with substantial zones grading more than 0.5 per cent zinc.

“This work highlights the multiple, large geochemical anomalies identified at surface across the tenement area. In turn, this illustrates the potential scale of the opportunity in an area with a proven history of mining,” CEO Stewart Dickson said.

“The extent and the quality of the information have further substantiated our decision to acquire the asset. Additionally, by being able to transfer this information into a digital dataset we are now in a better position to progress our exploration and development work.”

In July, the company agreed to acquire the advanced Novales-Udias and Guajaraz projects in Spain from a consortium of vendors led by Slipstream Resources Investments.

Novales-Udias is centred around the former producing Novales underground mine with a large surrounding area of exploration opportunities that include zinc soil anomalies over 2km long and close to 1km wide.

It includes a number of mining tenements and the Novales Mine is located about 80km trucking distance from the Asturias zinc smelter.

The Guajaraz project is centred around the former producing La Union underground mine together with the adjacent Mina La Blanca and Mina Manolita mines.

In other ASX base metals news:

Castillo Copper (ASX:CCZ) has ticked off on plans to progress its Cangai copper mine in northern New South Wales, one of Australia’s highest grading historical copper deposits, towards a scoping study. This includes upgrading the existing resource of 3.2 million tonnes at 3.35 per cent copper and providing sufficient results to meet the requirements for the study.

Havilah Resources (ASX:HAV) is planning to carry out a ground gravity survey over the Jupiter copper-gold target in South Australia, which is a large unexplained conductive zone similar to that seen extending to depth below the giant Olympic Dam iron oxide copper-gold mine. The survey will help refine the three geophysical indicators that all point to roughly coincident features of interest in Jupiter’s vicinity to help define drilling targets.