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Silver Spur shows Thomson Resources it has a lot more to give
Mining
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The historic, super-rich ‘Silver Spur’ mine is set to play a crucial role in Thomson Resources’ (ASX:TMZ) New England Fold Belt ‘Hub and Spoke’ development strategy.
Silver Spur is a historic high-grade silver polymetallic mine located within TMZ’s 100% controlled ‘Texas Silver District’.
The Texas district is a key project in the company’s New England Fold Belt (NEFB) ‘Hub and Spoke’ central processing strategy, where Thomson plans to put together a consolidated 100-million-ounce silver equivalent resource which will be fed into a central processing facility.
The explorer is undertaking extensive work on Silver Spur, the acquisition of which is nearing completion.
Initial work is extremely promising.
This includes encouraging results from initial metallurgical test work on Silver Spur sulphide mineralisation, with rougher stage float tests delivering good recoveries and grade in concentrate of silver, zinc, lead and copper.
Meanwhile, there’s high grade silver and zinc evident in 40 years of historic drilling at the Silver Spur mine, which confirms that a significant body of sulphide mineralisation remains.
Significant intersections included 18m @ 92.7g/t silver, 0.48g/t gold, 4.07% zinc, 0.87% lead, 0.20% copper (including 4m @ 375g/t silver, 0.32g/t gold, 7.40% zinc, 3.48% lead, 0.81% copper).
Mineralised shoots remain open and untested below the deepest drill intersection to date of 200m below surface, TMZ says.
AMC has been engaged to deliver a Silver Spur Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) under the 2012 JORC code as the next step in Thomson’s objective to deliver JORC 2012 MREs for its New England Fold Belt hub and spoke projects.
“We were always keen to acquire the Silver Spur ML as it contained the original Silver Spur silver mine, which, given the richness of its grades, is what kick-started this whole prolific silver producing district back in the late 19th Century,” TMZ exec chairman David Williams says.
“Our initial work on the location and study of the historic drill core just reinforces the potentiality of this area being a key deposit in our New England Fold Belt Hub and Spoke strategy.
“As a result, we were keen to advance Silver Spur to be the next of Thomson’s Mineral Resource Estimation and the first in the 100% controlled Texas Silver District.”
Silver Spur: a rich polymetallic resource
The Silver Spur underground mine was operated from 1892 to 1925, with additional sporadic mining in 1952, 1970 and 1976 producing a total ~100,000t of ore at an average grade of 800g/t silver with zinc, lead and copper.
Total produced metal is reported as 2.19moz silver, 690t zinc, 1,050t lead, 990t copper and 4,500oz gold.
But Silver Spur has plenty more to give, TMZ says.
The mineralised shoots have been mined to ~150m vertical depth but remain open.
Recent mapping has also interpreted the extension of the ‘Stokes’ fault as an important control on silver mineralisation there.
This interpretation highlights the underexplored +2km strike extent of the Stokes Fault as a priority target for further exploration.
This article was developed in collaboration with Thomson Resources, 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.
