Silver Mines looks to McPhillamys-style gold potential at Elsienora

Silver Mines has started a drilling program at its highly prospective Elsienora project, while also progressing the Bowdens silver project

A review of historic data from Elsienora has underscored the potential for gold mineralisation analogous to the McPhillamys deposit only 60km away

The 1700m diamond drill program will target prospects within the underexplored Godolphin-Copperhania Fault corridor

Special Report: While also progressing its Bowdens silver project, Silver Mines has got the rigs spinning at its highly prospective Elsienora project, where a review of historic data has firmed up the potential for McPhillamys-style gold mineralisation.

The 1700m diamond drilling program will target the Picker, Barite and Elsienora prospects at the project next to Silver Mines’ (ASX:SVL) Tuena gold project and 60km south of Regis Resources’ (ASX:RRL) McPhillamys gold deposit.

McPhillamys is one of Australia’s largest undeveloped open-pit gold resources with an ore reserve of 60.8Mt at 1.04g/t for 2.02Moz.

More specifically, the project is prospective for a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) style, which is analogous to McPhillamys.

VMS deposits are one of the richest sources of metals globally and have the potential for long-term production thanks to the common presence of clusters of deposits or ore lenses close to each other. The polymetallic nature of the ore also helps balance out volatility in any one commodity.

Filling in the gaps

Elsienora has been held by various companies from the 1970s, including Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK), before being acquired by Silver Mines in 2023.

Historical drilling across the Picker and Elsienora prospects has returned 18m at 0.44 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 5.4g/t silver and 0.18% critical mineral barium from only 27 metres; and 8m at 0.55g/t gold, 23.2g/t silver and 0.24% barium from 26 metres.

After completing an extensive review of data compiled by previous exploration (from 1970s to 2019), Silver Mines is seeking to fill in gaps it believes were missed.

Silver Mines Limited CEO Jo Battershill said: “We are very excited to be commencing

a diamond-drilling program at this highly prospective gold project. Historical results from previous explorers have firmed up the prospectivity and conceptualised correctly the potential for McPhillamys-style gold mineralisation.

“In our view, however, the historic drilling didn’t fully test the concept and our initial diamond drilling program should fill in some of those knowledge gaps. The extensive, and highly prospective, Godolphin-Copperhannia Fault corridor remains vastly underexplored, and Silver Mines holds a commanding exploration package across this structure.

“Progressing Bowdens this year is obviously our key focus but we also look forward to updating the market as the drill program progresses.”