Argent Minerals identifies potential Kempfield feeder zones
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Argent Minerals (ASX: ARD) has received the results of an independent review it recently commissioned for the company’s Kempfield silver project in New South Wales.
The review was conducted by VMS expert Professor Ross Large, who was charged to evaluate the project’s potential for rich Volcanic‐Hosted Massive Sulphide feeder zones in the Kempfield Silver project deposit, and to advise on an appropriate exploration strategy for their location.
Argent reported that Large identified a number of high-priority drill targets in close proximity to the Kempfield deposit as potential test sites of polymetallic high‐grade VMS feeder zones.
Kempfield gravity anomalies and the new drill targets. Source: Company announcement
“The new targets (Causeway Zone, Quarries South and Gravity Ridge) represent potentially significant future upside for the Kempfield silver project, in addition to the company’s development plans to bring the project into production as a significant silver mining operation,” Argent Minerals said in its ASX announcement.
Details of the new drill targets are as follows:
Very High Priority
The Causeway Zone anomaly (coincident gravity/Induced Polarisation [“IP”] chargeability).
The Causeway Zone is said to display intense silicified and sericitised rhyolitic agglomerate, which the company considers to represent an alteration assemblage similar to that of the footwall at the Que River deposit.
Argent said this could be a feeder zone of the Kempfield deposit.
The Causeway Zone anomaly has not been tested.
High Priority
The Quarries South anomaly (coincident gravity/IP chargeability).
Quarries South was partially tested by one drill hole, which intersected lead‐zinc mineralisation and silver mineralisation and a large halo of variable sericite/chlorite alteration.
Argent explained that it was unable to immediately follow‐up with a Down‐Hole Electromagnetic due to an immediate collapse of the hole.
The company does however consider the high‐grade base metals intersection indicates the proximity of a higher depositional temperature and hydrothermal vent.
There is still a significant southern portion of the Quarries South anomaly yet to be tested.
Moderate Priority
Gravity Ridge is a large elongated gravity/VTEM conductivity anomaly in the northwest of the Kempfield deposit.
The company’s current interpretation is that it probably represents a major basement structure – a growth fault with sporadic occurrences of barite lenses indicating the potential for additional mineralisation.
Two historical holes drilled in the Gravity Ridge returned high‐grade base metal intersections and intense chlorite/sericite alteration assemblages.
These holes only partially tested the shallow portion of the anomaly to 100 metres to 150 metres below the surface.
Mineralisation remains open at depth and to the Northwest.