Photo by: Goldspike Exploration
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Nevada-focused explorer Goldspike has expanded the mineralised footprint of its zinc/lead discovery at the Lone Mountain property, in Eureka County, showing that the mineralisation extended along strike to the south-east.
The Toronto-based explorer on Thursday reported that the latest highlight hole from the Phase 1 drill programme, LM-14-09, intersected several zones of zinc and lead mineralisation that combined to give an overall average of 6.04% zinc/lead over a hole length of 118.87 m, including high-grade intervals assaying 8.05% zinc/lead over 42.68 m and 12.87% zinc/lead over 24.34 m.
“We have only started to explore the targets, and given the thickness of these intersections and some of the grades, we are confident Lone Mountain is going to emerge as a focus discovery story for 2015,” president and CEO Bruce Durham said.
The company reported that two drill holes completed on a new section to the south-east of the discovery section (where the initial discovery holes were drilled) intersected significant intervals of zinc/lead mineralisation.
Hole LM-14-10 intersected an interval up-dip from the LM-10-09 intersection that assayed 6.82% zinc/lead over an interval of 18.29 m, including an upper high-grade zone that assayed 12.82% zinc/lead over 9.14 m.
Including the latest results, Goldspike had by now reported results from the three cross sections of drill holes where multiple holes had been completed. Holes on each of the three sections intersected significant intervals of zinc/lead mineralisation.
The company said that the top of most of the mineralised intervals were located at depths of about 100 m and the mineralisation remained mainly untested near surface.
The results from the first phase of drilling had indicated the presence of generally wide intervals of significant zinc/lead mineralisation up-dip and to the north-west and south-east of the discovery.
The company had applied for, and received authorisation for more drill holes from the US Bureau of Land Management (Battle Mountain Nevada office), which allowed it to start a Phase 2 drill programme in mid-December. It expected to complete significant drilling on the property in the current quarter.
Goldspike said a well-defined zinc-in-soil anomaly accompanied the up-dip projection of the mineralisation for a minimum 1 400 m length parallel to stratigraphy. A second, sub-parallel lead and lesser zinc soil anomaly had also been outlined in the vicinity of the current drilling results. The company was considering the implication of this second anomaly as it related to the mineralisation discovered to date.
The mineralisation remained open to expansion, particularly down-dip and along strike. The mineralisation remains open up-dip in places as well.
Goldspike also reported that it had received and included assay results from the lower part of the mineralised interval in drill hole LM-14-09 from additional drilling completed as part of the Phase 2 programme. This hole was deepened because the hole stopped in mineralisation. Additional Phase 2 results were expected in the coming weeks.
Goldspike noted that only a small part of the geochemical targets outlined on the property had been evaluated to date.