VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Canadian base metals producer Trevali Mining has hit more high-grade zinc intercepts during its 2016/17 exploration campaign on the Halfmile deposit, located in the Bathurst Mining Camp of north-eastern New Brunswick.
Designed to validate historic data as well as to expand and improve upon the existing geological model, Trevali completed 28 holes for 15 175 m testing a variety of targets within and around the Upper and Lower Zones of the Halfmile deposit, that remains open for expansion.
Some of the more significant intercepts from the programme included drill hole HK16-042, which intersected 22.1 m of high-grade massive sulphides from 679.2 m to 701.3 m downhole, grading 10.71% zinc (Zn), 4.16% lead (Pb), 0.12% copper (Cu), 69.97 g/t silver (Ag) and 0.47 g/t gold (Au).
Drill hole HK16-056A was designed to infill a gap in the Lower Zone of a modelled fold hinge. The hole intersected 110.5 m of massive to semi-massive sulphides from 717.5 m to 828.0 metres down hole, grading 7.86% Zn, 2.34% Pb, 0.11% Cu, and 11.11 g/t Ag.
The Halfmile deposit has a current indicated resource of 6.26-million tonnes grading 8.13% Zn, 2.58% Pb, 0.22% Cu, and 30.8 g/t Ag, and an inferred resource of 6.08-million tonnes at 6.69% Zn, 1.83% Pb, 0.14% Cu and 20.5 g/t Ag.
Trevali commented that the drill campaign in general corroborates the historic drilling completed on the project.
“This latest drilling dramatically increases Trevali’s confidence in the resource model and provides further information about precious metal values in the Upper and Lower Zones as previous drill programmes did not consistently analyse for silver or gold. The recent drilling has also facilitated an improved understanding of the local geology and thus allowed for a more realistic model of mineralisation that will ultimately facilitate future engineering studies,” the company said in a news release.