VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Callinex Mines has established a district-scale land page at the company's Nash Creek zinc project, in the prolific Bathurst mining district of New Brunswick, the company announced on Monday.
The land package now covers a 20 km trend and includes several high-grade base metal occurrences. Previously, Falconbridge, BHP Billiton and Noranda explored on the southern-most portion of the land package and it has indicated potential to host additional base metals deposits.
The district is home to pure-play zinc producer Trevali Metals and its Caribou mine, which is forecast to produce between 90-million and 93-million pounds of payable zinc in concentrate, 30-million to 32-million pounds of payable lead in concentrate, and 800 000 oz to 900 000 oz of payable silver this year.
The new claims, which span 36 km2, were staked to cover a trend of high-grade base metal occurrences to the south of the Nash Creek deposit within an underexplored volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) belt. The company already has an established resource base in Maritime Canada comprising 712-million pounds of zinc-equivalent in the indicated category, and 2.3-billion pounds of zinc-equivalent in the inferred category.
TSX-V-listed Callinex stated that the sizeable land package has the potential to host further zinc-rich VMS deposits over a 20 km trend, of which only 2 km has been subject to any significant exploration, which is related to the known Nash Creek deposit. The Nash Creek deposit is open for expansion along strike in both directions and is being aggressively advanced towards a maiden preliminary economic assessment.
“We look forward to aggressively advancing our sizeable resource base in New Brunswick and developing a project portfolio that is viable at current zinc prices. This larger land package ensures that Callinex controls a prospective VMS district with potential for new deposits to be discovered,” CEO Max Porterfield stated in a news release.
Callinex recently discovered mineralisation 350 m to the north of the Nash Creek deposit, where drill hole NC17-224 intersected 9 m of 5.2% zinc-equivalent, including 2.4 m of 12.6% zinc-equivalent, at a starting depth of 11 m. Assays on the recent Nash Creek drilling, which were focused on potentially expanding the resource to the north, are expected to be released within 15 days.
Previously, limited exploration on the southernmost 15 km of the land package, which was completed by Falconbridge, Noranda and BHP, indicated the potential to host further base metals deposits, the company advised.
Adding 2% on Monday, zinc has gained 36% in value since the start of the year to trade at $3 124/t.