Empire hits first zinc mineralisation

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Perth-based precious and base metals explorer Empire Resources has intersected high grade zinc mineralisation at its A Zone prospect.

The A Zone prospect lies within the company’s wholly owned Yuinmery copper gold project, located 80 kilometres southwest of Sandstone in Western Australia.

The zinc mineralisation was identified in a recently completed RC drill hole, which is part of an ongoing drilling program at A Zone testing a number of previously drilled copper gold intersections.

The visible sphalerite mineralisation was confirmed using a Niton hand held detector, which recorded an intersection of 4 metres at 8.1% Zinc from 187m downhole, including 1m at 10.2% Zinc from 188m.

The company said this preliminary assay was performed using powdered, homogenised RC samples and still requires laboratory confirmation.

The samples will also be analysed for gold, silver and other base metals.

The A Zone prospect lies 1.3 kilometres north of Empire’s flagship Just Desserts prospect where the company has defined a JORC Indicated and Inferred resource of 1,070,000 tonnes at 1.82% copper and 0.78g/t gold.

“This is the first intersection of high grade zinc mineralisation recorded at Yuinmery,” Empire Resources managing director David Sargeant said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The mineralisation is open at depth and along strike, and is being tested during this ongoing programme of drilling.

Sargeant went on to say that the drilling carried out so far at A Zone indicates at least two separate lenses of mineralisation.

The zinc mineralisation is appearing within in the upper horizon while the lower horizon contains the copper-gold mineralisation.

“Obviously any resource of zinc or copper-gold mineralisation that we can identify at A Zone will enhance the economics of developing the nearby Just Desserts resource,” Sargeant said.

“These results have encouraged us to extend our drilling program at A Zone as well as testing a number of other promising geophysical targets in the project area.”