A drill hole at the Tangoa West target within the historic Webbs Consol silver project in New South Wales has returned the highest silver grades to date for owner Lode Resources (ASX: LDR).
The company reported significant results of 54 metres at 304 grams per tonne silver equivalent from 48.3m, including 11.3m at 497g/t silver equivalent from 54m, and 7m at 506g/t silver equivalent from 81m, including 2m at 1,005g/t silver equivalent from 86m.
The hole extends the mineralisation at Tangoa West to 90m vertical depth.
It was drilled below a previous hole which returned 26.7m at 421g/t silver equivalent from 30.1m.
Multiple drill holes have been designed to test the Tangoa West lode to a vertical depth of 450m.
The inclusion of deeper holes is believed to indicate Lode’s high level of confidence in the rich endowment and potential scale of the Webbs Consol mineral system.
Intermittent mining
Located along the state’s New England Fold Belt, Webbs Consol was discovered in 1890 and was subject to intermittent mining up to the mid-1950s.
The project contains several small and high-grade silver-lead-zinc-gold deposits hosted by the Webbs Consol Leucogranite, intruding the Late Permian Emmaville Volcanics and undifferentiated Early Permian sediments.
Several mine shafts were worked for Webbs’ high-grade galena and silver content, and discarded the high-grade zinc mineralisation.
Mineral concentration was achieved via basic Chilean milling techniques and sluicing, with limited rough flotation of galena and no recorded attempts to recover sphalerite.
Ore mineralogy
The ore mineralogy at Webbs Consol includes galena, sphalerite, marmatite, arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, minor bismuth and gold.
The minerals are generally disseminated with high-grade “bungs” where emplacement is a combination of fracture infilling and country rock replacement.
Gangue mineralogy includes quartz, chlorite and sericite with the quartz occurring as veins and granular relicts.
Historical exploration showed potential for high-grade silver and zinc mineralisation at Webbs Consol, with 12 spot samples taken from the lowest level of the main shaft averaging 210g/t silver, 22.6% zinc and 2.74% lead.
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