Sliver City Minerals Drill Ready at Copper Blow

THE INSIDE STORY: Silver City Minerals (ASX: SCI) is generating a good deal of excitement around the company’s historic Copper Blow copper project, located 20 kilometres south of Broken Hill in New South Wales.

The Copper Blow project is a Joint Venture between Silver City (75%) and CBH Resources (CBH; 25%), which owns and operates the Rasp Mine and sulphide flotation facility at Broken Hill. 

Mining commenced at Copper Blow in 1887 producing 715 tonnes of copper ore at grades up to 13 per cent copper during that initial phase.

Drilling carried out by previous owners over 60 years from 1949, included around fifty-three holes testing a zone measuring one kilometre in strike.

Silver City recently completed a review of historic Copper Blow drilling as part of a broader review of its southern tenements, which identified a series of diamond drill holes completed between 1982 and 1994, six of which were drilled to depths of greater than 250 metres, encountering high-grade copper mineralisation.

The review unearthed diamond and RC holes at Copper Blow that returned high-grade copper and gold results over estimated true widths of 15 metres, including:

11.8 metres at 6.7 per cent copper, 1.92 grams per tonne gold and 13.7g/t silver;

19.8m at 1.8 per cent copper, including 3m at 4.6 per cent copper;

15m at 2.7 per cent copper, 0.53g/t gold and 3.7g/t silver; and

2.1m at 3.2 per cent copper, 0.65g/t gold, 5g/t silver and 0.038 per cent cobalt.

As good as these results were, Silver City was unable to locate any evidence of systematic follow-up exploration of these holes by previous explorers to ascertain the existence of steeply plunging, high-grade deposits.

Its appetite whetted by the historic drilling results, Silver City collected sixteen Copper Blow rock chip samples from over a strike length of one kilometre to gain a better understanding of the trace element assemblage of the copper-rich mineralisation.

The samples were analysed for 36 elements with results showing them to be oxidized with abundant copper carbonate minerals, including malachite.

They were also highly elevated in copper, returning results like those encountered by the historic drilling in deeper sulphide zones.

Copper results ranged from 0.01 per cent to 6.89 per cent with an average of 2.6 per cent, which Silver City interpreted to suggest several anomalous trace elements may hold economic potential.

These include gold (to 1.84g/t), silver (to 12.6g/t), cobalt (to 749ppm), lanthanum (a rare earth element to 590ppm) and molybdenum (to 198ppm).

The company concluded potential exists for other economic elements associated with copper – especially gold, silver and cobalt – and that the signature of these elements is typical of IOCG deposits.

It didn’t take long for Silver City to start planning a 2,600m drilling program, consisting of two groups of drill holes.

The first will assess the southern group (south of Stenhouse shaft) and will comprise combined RC and diamond holes designed to outline plunging bodies of copper-rich mineralisation near existing high-grade intersections.

North of the Stenhouse shaft four reverse circulation percussion holes will assess an area of broad copper mineralisation within the strongest magnetic anomaly in the area.

“The initial drilling program at Copper Blow will test a mineralised strike length of approximately 750 metres to vertical depths of between 50 and 200 metres,” Silver City Minerals managing director Chris Torrey told The Resources Roadhouse.

“This zone lies at the southwestern end of a highly-prospective, poorly explored and poorly outcropping magnetic horizon, which extends for four kilometres.

“We are also currently planning an exploration program for the horizon to the northeast of Copper Blow, which is likely to include Rotary Airblast (RAB) drilling and ground geophysical surveys.”

Silver City is undertaking a placement of new shares to sophisticated investors for a total value of $428,000, as well as conducting a Share Purchase Plan to existing eligible shareholders to raise a maximum of $250,000.

The anticipated $0.7 million to be raised has been earmarked to fund the high impact drilling program on the high-grade Copper Blow project.

“We believe Copper Blow is an exciting exploration program and the high-grade historical results of up to 6.7 per cent copper over 11.8 metres underpins the confidence we have in the project,” Torrey said.

Silver City Minerals Limited (ASX: SCI)
…The Short Story

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