Pic: Tyler Stableford / Stone via Getty Images
Silver City reports high-grade copper and gold hits at Copper Blow
Mining
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Silver City’s exploration program at its flagship Copper Blow project in Broken Hill continues to impress with new drill targets identified and significant discoveries over 600 metres of strike.
Results from initial exploration at Copper Blow — located 20km south of Broken Hill – have been very encouraging, returning high grade copper, gold and cobalt intersections.
Broken Hill is traditionally known for silver, lead and zinc – but investigations by Silver City (ASX:SCI) show this western NSW mining district also contains an abundance of copper and gold.
Drilling from the 11-hole program shows strong mineralisation over 600 metres with further potential along strike.
The best intersections include 4 metres at 6.1 per cent copper and 4.2 grams of gold per tonne, and 7 metres at 3.7 per cent copper and 1.07 grams of gold.
Significant cobalt-rich intersections include 5.2 metres at 0.14 per cent and 0.75 metres at 0.29 per cent.
Extensions of these shoots both north and south of the central fault, providing excellent targets for follow-up drilling, Silver City managing director Chris Torrey told Stockhead.
“The latest intersections contain very high-grade copper and gold over potentially mineable thicknesses,” Mr Torrey said.
“As they say, ‘grade is king’ so this provides a sharp focus for our future work. Defining a resource — especially a high-grade resource — is we where we are focused”.
New Targets
Meanwhile, new geophysical data and rock chip samples indicate at least four untested anomalies within a 4km zone.
Silver City believes these are excellent targets for follow-up drilling with the potential for copper and gold enriched plunging shoots like Copper Blow.
Exploration work at Copper Blow included 2700 metres of drilling, detailed ground gravity, magnetic and electromagnetic surveys and geological mapping and rock sampling.
Drilling focused on an area of old mine workings and trench geochemistry which showed strong copper anomalism extending for 1.1km along strike over a width of 160 metres.
A targeted drilling campaign on mineralisation at Copper Blow and adjacent geophysical-geochemical anomalies is planned as well as continued geophysical and geochemical surveys.
Silver City hoped to drill immediately after the Christmas break, Mr Torrey said.
“While not set in stone, I envisage the next round of drilling will be 3000 to 6000 metres of combined reverse circulation and diamond drilling,” he said.
Copper Blow shows strong geological similarities to iron oxide copper and gold deposits (IOCG) in Queensland such as Ernest Henry, Selwyn and Osborne.
If Copper Blow is an IOCG deposit, it would be the first documented deposit of its type in NSW and potentially the first modern copper mine in the Broken Hill district.
