What have we got here? Drilling has intersected high-grade zinc at the southwest part of its Buenahora exploration licence. Pic: via Getty Images
Mining
Assaying of Variscan’s drill program at the southwest part of its Buenahora exploration licence has returned consistently high-grade zinc-dominant mineralisation.
The program, the first significant exploration drilling at the licence for at least three decades, also confirmed the considerable vertical extent – exceeding 20m in places – of the mineralisation.
Notable assays from underground drilling are 16.05m grading 5.84% zinc and 1.21% lead (JDDT-02), 10m at 7.46% zinc and 0.81% lead (JDDT-03), and 3.3m at 14.66% zinc and 6.47% lead (JDDT-01) as well as 3.95m at 8.61% zinc and 0.65% lead (PEDDT-02) in surface drilling.
Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR) also received favourable channel sampling results from the historical Pepita mine such as 3.1m at 17.21% zinc and 1.35% lead and 2.2m at 10.8% zinc and 1.99% lead.
Separately, encouraging visual mineralisation was recorded from two surface diamond holes about 1,200m along strike of the San Jose mine stopes.
“These results reflect a very busy period of drilling and field exploration through 2022 and into 2023 as the planned program was extended in duration,” managing director Stewart Dickson said.
He noted that the confirmation of consistently high grade zinc-dominant mineralisation with considerable vertical extent in the southwest part of Buenahora, as well as the intersection of mineralisation in most surface holes testing new regional prospects, have confirmed the prospectivity and the complexity of the Buenahora exploration licence.
“The step-out drill-holes at the San Jose Mine are encouraging and we look forward to reporting assay results soon. These major intersections indicate wider zones of mineralisation and will be prioritised in future follow-up surface drilling,” Dickson added.
“Further underground drilling at the San Jose Mine is anticipated to commence shortly as we proceed with mineral resource definition and a Mine Re-Start Concept Study to identify the potential economics and workstreams to support a restart of mining at the San Jose mine.”
The results confirm that high-grade, zinc-dominant mineralisation is present at and around the historical Pepita and Jufresno mines.
Mineralisation styles vary from stratiform to open-space fill, breccia-hosted and vein-like, and is spatially less regular than that from the San Jose mine, making for more complex surface drill targeting.
Variscan noted that follow-up drilling will need to rely more on structural interpretations focusing on feeder structures and favourable lithology and stratigraphy as the vectors to ore, as drilling to test five distinct induced polarisation anomalies only returned generally modest zinc mineralisation.
It added that while visual observations are in no way a replacement for laboratory analysis, the mineralisation observed in its latest San Jose hole suggests intervals in excess of 20m of continuous zinc were intersections and that it appears to be a continuation of the same mineral system.
This article was developed in collaboration with Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR), 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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