Argent Minerals drilling potentially increases size of Kempfield
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Argent Minerals (ASX: ARD) has released results from Hole #2, part of a deep diamond drilling program being carried out at the company’s Kempfield project in New South Wales.
The drilling is being partly sponsored by the NSW Trade & Investment, Resources & Energy Division.
According to Argent, Hole #2 returned intersections of 2 metres at 0.28 grams per tonne gold from 398 m, and 1m at 0.54g/t gold from 522 m.
The results follow one from those previous released for Hole #1 of 5m at 4g/t gold from 353m.
Argent said the attributes of the material intersected by both holes are consistent with proximity to a high temperature Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) feeder zone and the potential for high-grade base and precious metal mineralisation featuring zinc and lead.
“A potentially major achievement of this early part of the drilling program is that examination and interpretation of the drill core has validated Argent’s hypothesis for the formation processes and the model for the current structure of the Kempfield deposit,” Argent Minerals managing director David Busch said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities exchange.
“A significant outcome of this model validation is the increased potential ‘size of the prize’ at Kempfield.
“Now that earlier alternative models for the deposit have essentially been ruled out by the latest evidence, the validated model implies that the lengths of the steeply dipping lenses could extend to substantial depths from their uppermost portions at or near the surface.
“This applies to both the existing known lenses and the additional lenses targeted by Argent’s continuing Kempfield deep diamond drilling program.”
Argent intends to conduct downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) surveys for Holes #1 and #2 to assist in diamond hole design planning.
The company has cased Holes 1 and 2 to 480 and 702 metres respectively in preparation for the surveys, which it anticipates will provide substantial coverage in this portion of the exploration site given an approximate 200m radius of coverage by the DHEM sensor.
Argent also has DHEM surveys planned to follow the drilling of Holes #3 and #4, which will be drilled to test interpreted the recently-defined Lens 4, and strike extension of Lens 3.
Hole #4 will commence testing for lens extensions at depth beneath the existing deposit, initially testing underneath Lens 3 where grades of up to 17.9 per cent combined lead/zinc were previously intersected.
“Additional hole design work is underway for the next phase of the Kempfield deep diamond drilling program, which will test the lens extensions at depth predicted by the validated deposit model,” Busch said.
Website: www.argentminerals.com.au