Drilling at Silver Mines’ Bowdens project in New South Wales has returned the highest-grade intercept to date from the Bundarra Zone, adding to the prospects of a very significant underground resource in addition to the proposed open pit.

Silver Mines’ (ASX:SVL) is continuing its run of success at the Bowdens silver project, today reporting an eyewatering 694 grams per tonne (g/t) silver equivalent at depth from the Bundarra Zone.

Drilling to extend the Bundarra zone returned a top hit of 14.2m at 374g/t silver equivalent (36g/t silver, 4.86% zinc, 2.35% lead and 0.23g/t gold) from 238m.

This included a higher-grade intercept of 4.6m at 694g/t silver equivalent from 245.4m – the highest grade hit yet from this area of the project.

It follows close on the heels of extremely high-grade intercepts reported in late October.

As an added bonus, Silver Mines uncovered a new style of high-grade mineralisation, with drilling delivering intercepts like 3m at 437g/t silver equivalent (52g/t silver, 5.57% zinc, 0.5% lead and 1.14g/t gold) from 294.4m.

This included an even higher grade hit of 1.4m at 749g/t silver equivalent (78g/t silver, 9.14% zinc, 0.87% lead and 2.36g/t gold) from 96m.

Silver Mines said the quartz-sulphide vein appeared to represent a conduit to the Bundarra style mineralisation, forming a new component to the Bowdens silver system. This style of mineralisation is also prospective for gold.

Further significant intercepts returned from drilling the Bundarra Zone were 9m at 296 g/t silver equivalent from 300.7m, including 1m at 615g/t silver equivalent (67g/t, 4.65% zinc, 3.32% lead and 2.58g/t gold) from 308m.

The Bundarra Zone now extends for 200m of strike and spans a width of 150m.

Silver Mines is also waiting on assays from another diamond drill hole at Bundarra South, where two veins were intersected and represent a potentially substantial new hot, high-grade target, including gold.

The zones currently being tested as part of this drill program lie beneath Bowden’s existing ore reserve, which has already established it as the largest undeveloped silver deposit in Australia and one of the largest in the world.

Silver Mines will use the new drill results to define a maiden underground resource at Bowdens.

Silver Mines is in the final stages of development approval for a 2-million-tonne-per-annum open pit operation that would have an initial mine life of 16.5 years producing about 66 million ounces of silver, 130,000 tonnes of zinc and 95,000 tonnes of lead.

The drilling results so far have given Silver Mines the confidence to move forward not only with an initial underground resource at Bowdens, but also to concurrently move forward with a Scoping Study for a potential underground development.

Drilling will continue into 2022, with four rigs in operation. The Scoping Study is slated for completion by mid-next year.

This article was developed in collaboration with Silver Mines, 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.

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