Miramar Resources returns high-grade assays from sampling at Chain Pool

Miramar Resources (ASX: M2R) has announced high-grade assays from sampling during an initial reconnaissance field trip to its Chain Pool copper-lead-zinc-silver project in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia.

Samples collected from around the Joy Helen prospect returned best assays of 5.49% copper, 42.0% lead and 73.48 grams per tonne silver and 5.43% copper, 36.7% lead, 36g/t silver and 0.27% zinc.

Diverse potential

Executive chair Allan Kelly said the under-explored project had potential for various commodities and deposit types.

“There has not been any modern or systematic exploration or drilling at Joy Helen despite the presence of high-grade base metal mineralisation,” he said.

“We look forward to getting this tenement granted and uncovering the potential of the project.”

Previous work

The Joy Helen prospect, which contains historic workings and costeans over a strike length of approximately 400 metres, has no outcrop and the prospect is not well-understood.

Drilling in the 1960s intersected lead-copper mineralisation including 1.5m at 13.7% lead and 1.6% copper, however the locations of the drill holes were not recorded.

CRA Exploration – which would later become Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) – collected a limited number of rock chips around the workings in the 1990s and completed a regional stream sediment sampling program further to the north-east.

In the three years up to 2009, Quadrio Resources collected rock chip samples around Joy Helen, which returned significant copper-lead-silver results.

Future plans

Miramar recently collected a limited number of samples from among the workings which contained varying amounts of malachite, azurite, galena, sphalerite, cerussite and barite.

Once the exploration licence over Joy Helen is granted, Mr Kelly said the company would conduct a formal systematic rock chip sampling program and a grid soil survey to determine the potential strike extent of the mineralisation under cover.