Silver City identifies large multi-element system at Copper Blow

Silver City has identified a large copper-gold-rare earth-iron system at the Copper Blow prospect within its Broken Hill project in New South Wales.

This follows a comprehensive review of new polymetallic assays of sample pulps from previous drilling and historical assays to define the distribution of various metals within the area of drilling at the project.

Silver City Minerals (ASX:SCI) noted that thick copper-gold mineralisation in the North Block is strongly associated with a large zone of rare earth metals and magnetite and open at depth.

Re-assaying at North Block tops up at 41.2m grading 1.3 per cent copper, 0.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 32 per cent iron and 0.3 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from a depth of 183.8m.

Additionally, the multiple, narrow high-grade copper-gold mineralisation in the South Block is strongly associated with magnetite mineralisation and is open down-plunge to the southwest.

Highlight intersections in this area are 4m at 6.1 per cent copper, 4.2gt gold and 37.7 per cent iron from 188m and 7m at 3.7 per cent copper, 1.1g/t gold, 23.3 per cent iron and 0.4 per cent TREO.

Exploration Target

Using the drill data, the company has estimated an exploration target of between 10.5 million tonnes (Mt) and 14.5Mt at grades of between 0.6 per cent to 0.8 per cent copper, 0.13g/t to 0.23g/t gold and 7.5 per cent to 9 per cent iron.

Separate higher grades of both copper and iron are expected to occur within the deposit though this will require more detailed domaining within the simple wireframes completed to date.

Additionally, Silver City has estimated a TREO exploration target of between 1.5Mt and 2.5Mt grading between 0.18 per cent and 0.44 per cent TREO due to the limited number of TREO samples that have been sampled to date.

The company says it will focus on reviewing the deficiencies in the historical drilling data, and work towards completing a JORC 2012 inferred resource.

Metallurgy and ongoing exploration

Silver City has started a review of metallurgy to progress the positive floatation test work results at Copper Blow that returned results of up to 97 per cent copper.

A review was also carried out on the viability of treating iron as a by-product of the copper-gold mineralisation with results indicating a magnetite content of up to 42 per cent, or about 80 per cent of the iron values.

Separately, the company is reviewing regional geophysics including airborne magnetics, radiometrics and gravity to characterise the anomalies at Copper Blow.

An extensive regional field sampling campaign is currently underway to identify further copper-gold-rare earth-magnetite targets across the Broken Hill tenure while an upcoming field visit will be carried out to assess the deposit workings and confirm collar locations.

This article was developed in collaboration with Silver City Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.