Thomson is waiting eagerly for updated Silver Spur resource

Thomson is updating resources at the historical Silver Spur silver polymetallic mine that is a key component of its New England Fold Belt Hub and Spoke strategy.

The calculation of the updated resource comes after the company completed ‘forensic’ reconstruction and validation of its drill database, relogging and developing a new deposit model.

In addition, Thomson Resources (ASX:TMZ) will also include 11 drill holes with significant silver and zinc mineralisation that were drilled by previous explorers but were not included in the 2004 Silver Spur resource estimate.

The New England Fold Belt Hub and Spoke strategy is aimed at consolidating a 100 million ounce silver equivalent resource that will be fed into a central processing facility.

“Our second mineral resource estimate – Silver Spur – is now on the way with AMC. At the same time the Mt Gunyan relog and drill data validation is advancing at pace,” executive chairman David Williams said.

“The work undertaken so far is showing Silver Spur to be an exciting area with tremendous upside potential and we have the feeling that this sleeper is going to offer up a lot.

“The recent work by the Global Ore team as part of the Resource Estimate project has thrown up exciting exploration potential which has been confirmed down dip and adjacent to the Silver Spur mine.

“There is also a very interesting district scale picture emerging of the larger Texas Silver district exploration potential which shows there is a lot more to come in this area.”

Separately, the company received a vote of support from major shareholder Bacchus Resources, which kept its shareholding in the company above 5% by exercising options.

Silver Spur

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.

New 3D structural and mining void models have confirmed that the mineralised shoots remain open and untested below the deepest drill intersections.

Structural mapping has also demonstrated that the Silver Spur and Twin Hills deposits are localised along the same district scale northwest trending structure named ‘Stokes Fault’ at Silver Spur that opens up the intervening 1.5km of the fault zone and areas to the south of Silver Spur as prospective for the discovery of new mineralisation.

Ongoing compilation of historical exploration data for the Silver Spur Mine area has also highlighted a series of untested induced polarisation and electromagnetic anomalies in prospective structural settings and adjacent to the mine that represent attractive drill targets.

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.