TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – London’s Aim-listed Sunrise Resources has acquired historic data from previous explorers on the company’s Clayton silver/gold project, indicating that further drilling is indeed warranted.

Historic exploration carried out in the 1980s by Freeport McMoRan and Coeur Exploration had delivered some promising mineralised leads, with a number of holes ending in mineralisation, or not reaching the target depth, owing to difficult drilling conditions, the company advised Thursday.

Among the 21 holes drilled were some significant silver intersections including Hole CC-2, which intersected 6.1 m at 155 g/t silver from 30.5 m depth; Hole CC-6, which encountered 3 m at 165 g/t silver from 16.8 m depth; and Hole CL-15, which intersected 7.6 m at 165 g/t silver from 82.3 m depth to the base of the hole.

Sunrise stated that Freeport had previously thought that grades were likely understated owing to the loss of fine silver-bearing sulphide minerals during the reverse circulation drilling programme.

“We are delighted to have acquired this project at a time of rising silver prices and at low cost as a keystone for the precious metal portfolio we are now assembling in our new subsidiary Westgold Inc. The silver intersection at the base of hole CL-15 warrants follow-up diamond drilling as originally recommended by Freeport’s exploration team,” executive chairperson Patrick Cheetham stated.

Sunrise had in May acquired rights to the Clayton project, located at the south end of the Clayton Valley, a significant centre of lithium brine production. Through its subsidiary Westgold, the company had staked 15 mineral claims.

After evaluating the historic exploration results, the company now considered a programme of diamond drilling warranted to twin, and step out, from drill hole CL-15. The company was currently compiling the historical data into a three-dimensional model to assist with drill planning.

The project is located some 30 km south-east of the producing Mineral Ridge gold mine, 30 km south-west of the major historic mining centre of Goldfield, where a number of large gold/silver deposits were currently under development and 63 km south-west of the famous silver deposits of Tonopah, which produced more than 138-million ounces of silver and 1.5-million ounces of gold from 1900 to 1921.