Eagle Mountain Mining Drills Thick Mineralised Copper Zones at Oracle Ridge
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Eagle Mountain Mining (ASX: EM2) provided a report on exploration activities at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Oracle Ridge Mine project in Arizona, USA.
Eagle Mountain Mining has been undertaking a Resource Upgrade drilling program to verify the quality and reliability of historical drilling information in the company’s database.
An initial comparison between new and historical holes has shown a good reconciliation between the old and new geological and assay data, revealing the average gold grade in recent holes appears to be moderately higher than in historical ones.
Eagle Mountain indicated that should the remaining infill Resource Upgrade holes support the grades and thicknesses of previous drilling, a portion of the existing Indicated Mineral Resource is expected to be upgraded to the JORC Measured category (following an updated Mineral Resource Estimate).
The recent drilling has defined thick, fully diluted, mineralised zones within the existing JORC resource, returning results including:
WT-21-24
110.1 metres at 1.06 per cent copper, 9.64 grams per tonne silver and 0.16g/t gold, ending in mineralisation;
WT-21-20
106m at 1.15 per cent copper, 11.73g/t silver and 0.16g/t gold;
WT-21-18
96.1m at 0.98 per cent copper, 7.84g/t silver and 0.15g/t gold; and
WT-21-26
47.3m at 1.00 per cent copper, 13.25g/t silver and 0.13 g/t gold.
WT-21-24 returned a thick zone of: 18.4m at 3.12 per cent copper, 27.83g/t silver and 0.51g/t gold, within 50.5m at 1.73 per cent copper, 14.31g/t silver and 0.26g/t gold.
“These very thick zones of mineralisation have the potential to provide significant optionality for mining,” Eagle Mountain Mining CEO Tim Mason said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“We have now completed five infill holes, all of which had similar thick zones of mineralisation, suggesting that this may not be an anomaly.
“From a mining perspective, thick zones of mineralisation provide potential for bulk mining scenarios or using ore sorting technology to separate barren rocks from copper bearing ores to reduce processing costs.
“These results surprised us because many of these mineralised zones were not visually obvious in the core, and hence why they were probably not assayed by previous owners.
“The intercept of 18m at 3.12 per cent copper and 0.51 grams per tonne gold, within a much larger mineralised zone, is one of the best intercepts at Oracle Ridge.
“In addition, the overall gold grades in the reported infill holes are, on average, better than those in surrounding historical holes.
“We are excited by these results, because if the presence of these thick zones is extensive it could materially improve the contained copper in resource and provide optionality for future mining methods and production rates.
“We will continue with our program of resource upgrade drilling and given these latest results, we will certainly assay zones in between the key lodes!”
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE
Email: info@eaglemountain.com.au
