THE DRILL SERGEANT: Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) has claimed the first drilling campaign conducted at the company’s Las Opeñas project in Argentina has discovered wide zones of gold mineralisation with silver, lead and zinc.

The company said the results support its conviction Las Opeñas could potentially host a multi-million-ounce gold deposit in a large epithermal system.

Genesis also indicated it considers recent rock chip samples and mapping confirm potential for narrow, high-grade veins within this system.

These veins, which Genesis said will be drill tested as part of an exploration program to be carried out in the New Year, would boost the economics of a bulk-tonnage operation.

 

Las Opeñas drill hole locations and results. Source: Company announcement

 

In the recently-completed first drilling program, a wide zone of gold mineralisation was intersected, with analytical results including:

–    115m at 0.58g/t gold, 3.5g/t silver, 0.24 per cent lead and 0.65 per cent zinc from 18m to end of hole, including 47.1m at 0.84g/t gold, 3.5g/t silver, 0.21 per cent lead and 0.63 per cent zinc from 80.4m.

A further hole intersected:

–    29.4m at 0.57g/t gold, 9.9g/t silver, 0.29 per cent lead and 1.1 per cent zinc from 65m.

“Our first program of drilling at Las Opeñas confirmed the excellent potential of this project,” Genesis Minerals managing director Michael Fowler said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“This potential is demonstrated by the wide zones of gold mineralisation returned in the limited drilling completed so far, as well as the numerous high-grade structural targets that are untested at Las Opeñas.”

Genesis mentioned exploration planned for next year will be targeted at rapidly and systematically testing the breccia and high–grade vein systems at Las Opeñas with the aim of confirming the significance of the epithermal mineralisation at the project.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Horseshoe Metals (ASX: HOR) has completed its latest phase of Reverse Circulation percussion drilling at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Kumarina copper project in Western Australia.

The latest round of drilling at Kumarina was completed on 2 December 2012 and focused on in-fill and step-out holes at the Rinaldi Prospect with 27 holes drilled.

 

Rinaldi drill hole location plan. Source: Company announcement

 

KRC120 was drilled as an in-fill hole to test for copper mineralisation near the historic Rinaldi shaft.

The hole intersected a 5three metre wide void at 22m to 25m down hole depth from the historical mining with copper mineralisation encountered either side of the void including:

–     1 metre at 5.9 per cent copper (21m -22m) and 6 metres at 2.5 per cent copper (25m – 31m), including 3 metres at 4.8 per cent copper.

Further south KRC118 was drilled through the fault zone intersecting a 23 metre zone of intermittent copper mineralisation.

The best interval in this hole was:

–    5m at 1.9 per cent copper (30m – 35m), including 2m at 4.1 per cent copper and 6m at 3.5 per cent copper (42m – 48m), including 2m at 9.1 per cent copper.

Approximately 120 metres to the south of the Rinaldi shaft, hole KRC051 – which was drilled in 2011 – was extended from 71m to 137m depth, testing for a southerly extension of copper mineralisation.

The KRC051 extension intersected some low grade copper mineralisation, including:

–    1m at 0.5 per cent copper (113m – 114m).

A further hole, KRC116 was drilled below KRC051, intersecting:

–    4m at 2.2 per cent copper (106m – 10m), including 1m at 4 per cent copper.

“The intersecting of copper mineralisation in KRC116 is significant in demonstrating that copper mineralisation continues to the south within the fault zone,” Horseshoe Metals said in its ASX announcement.

“The ground below KRC116 remains untested for further copper mineralisation.”

The company indicated it had recorded intervals of copper in three of the seven remaining holes drilled in the immediate Rinaldi prospect area.

The samples from the remaining sixteen holes (KRC126 – KRC141) are anticipated to be available for release shortly.

Horseshoe Metals declared a JORC compliant mineral resource estimation of the Rinaldi prospect will be completed once all laboratory analysis work is completed.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Ironclad Mining (ASX: IFE) is currently drilling two, previously untested, prospects situated adjacent to the company’s Wilcherry Hill project in South Australia.

The company said it has encountered continuous near surface Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) Goethite/Hematite at the Zealous and Black Hills West prospects.

Both Prospects are located within the Joint Venture exploration licence between Ironclad 80 per cent and Trafford Resources (ASX: TRF) 20 per cent.

 

Locality of Zealous and Black Hills West to Wilcherry Hill. Source: Company announcement

 

IronClad kicked off the drilling program in November with the intent of identifying additional, near surface DSO in order to reduce mining and processing costs.

The Zealous and Black Hills West prospects were previously identified within the Wilcherry Hill project area as containing outcropping material suitable for DSO – but remained untested by drilling.

They have now been collectively subjected to 1122m of drilling in 26 holes.

“We are very pleased with the drilling results received, to date, from the Zealous and Black Hills West prospects as we previously identified these targets to host mineralisation suitable for DSO,” Ironclad mining acting CEO Robert Mencel said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“These results validate not only our corporate strategy to build on our existing near surface resource but also the prospectivity of the Wilcherry Hill project area in general.

“This is an exciting time for IronClad, as we build our DSO base, and we are looking forward to updating the market frequently as we progress forward.”
IronClad is now waiting to receive further results to enable it to plan additional drilling programs for Zealous and Black Hills West to delineate the size and extent of the mineralisation.”

Ironclad will also be undertaking an additional exploration drilling program at the Hercules project, which is located approximately 15km from the Wilcherry Hill project.

The company explained Hercules is known to host large iron ore mineralisation in considers to be conducive to DSO with a historic target of 193.9 million tonnes at 27.11 per cent iron.

To further define and potentially increase the known DSO resource at the Hercules project Ironclad will conduct an additional 2,000m drilling program.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Orinoco Gold (ASX: OGX) has received the first assay results from a maiden diamond drilling program currently underway at the company’s Curral de Pedra gold project in central Brazil, which it claims have confirmed the continuity of mineralisation over 620 metres down dip.

Orinoco indicated the assays it has received to date from the first three holes cover only one of three known mineralised zones at Curral de Pedra’s Cascavel target, which is known as the First Mineralised Level.

 

Section showing reported channel and drill results. Source: Company announcement

 

Assays from the other zones are pending.

Intersections from this zone include 3.41 metres at 21.76 grams per tonne gold, including 0.66 metres at 193.69 grams per tonne gold.

Previous channel samples from historic workings on this level returned samples of 0.65m at 72.7g/t gold.

“While we are delighted to have an intersection of more than three metres grading over 21 grams per tonne gold in one of our first ever holes at the project, the key message from these results is that the scale of the mineralisation at Cascavel is shaping up to be very substantial,” Orinoco Gold managing director Mark Papendieck said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“It is early days in this exploration program, but all the results received to date support our over‐arching belief that Cascavel has the potential to be an extremely large gold system characterised by structurally controlled quartz veins hosting high‐grade mineralisation.”

Orinoco explained its primary objective for the ongoing drilling program has been to establish the continuity of the mineralisation over the 620m down dip extent of the structure, which it claims has now been achieved, and along its 500m strike length.

The company said it intends its next report of assay results will occur once it has received a more representative number of results, which it anticipates happening by late January 2013.

The ongoing drilling program aims to achieve three objectives:

–     First, to ‘infill’ drill within the currently known 500m by 620m zone encompassing the First and Second Mineralised Levels;

–     Second, to establish the continuity of mineralisation within additional sulphide zones intersected in recent drilling above the First Mineralised Level; and

–    Third, to test the interpreted 1.5 kilometre strike extension to all three structures.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Discovery Metals (ASX: DML) has reported assay results from 15 diamond drill holes at the Zeta NE deposit, located within the company’s 100 per cent-owned prospecting licences in the Kalahari Copperbelt in north-west Botswana.

Discovery said the In-fill drilling at Zeta NE has intersected copper-silver mineralisation thicker than what it expected.

Diamond drill hole results include:

–    54.6 metres at 1.4 per cent copper and 10 grams per tonne silver, including 18.7 metres at 2 per cent copper and 13 grams per tonne silver;

–    26m at 1.7 per cent copper and 22g/t silver;

–    13.5m at 1.7 per cent copper and 48g/t silver;

–    12m at 1.9 per cent copper and 44g/t silver;

–    6m at 3.3 per cent copper and 38g/t silver; and

–    17.7m at 1.1 per cent copper and 112g/t silver.

“These are outstanding results that demonstrate significant upside on the current Mineral Resources at Zeta NE,” Discovery Metals managing director Brad Sampson said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Furthermore, they support one of the major value propositions contained in our recently released Target’s Statement, namely that the Mineral Resources at Boseto are expected to continue to grow over time and support mining activities well beyond those defined in our current mine plans.”

The 15 diamond drill holes were drilled on five sections 100m apart, over a strike length of approximately 400m.

Discovery said the drill hole logs indicate the top of the sulphide zone to be at about 40m vertical depth with the depth of Kalahari sands covering the mineralisation approximately five metres in this area.

 

Zeta NE drillhole cross section. Source: Company announcement

 

Discovery Metals is continuing to progress with studies into expanding capacity and extending the mine life of the Boseto operations and it indicated it anticipates these latest results from Zeta NE to add to the attractiveness of incorporating Zeta NE into those longer term plans.

Additional drilling is currently underway at Zeta NE with the objective of intersecting copper-silver mineralisation at depths between 500m and 600m below surface within the dip projection of a high-grade zone, which the company believes to have potential for underground mining.

These drill holes are planned as the first step towards defining underground Mineral Resources at Zeta NE and first assay results are anticipated in December 2012.