Red Mountain Increases US Critical Minerals Footprint with Silver Dollar Project Acquisition
Red Mountain Mining (ASX: RMX) has increased its footprint in Idaho by over 80% with the acquisition of 24 new claims in the highly-prospective Silver Dollar antimony-gold project.
The project provides the company with increased scale in the central Idaho region, and boosts its North American portfolio beyond the Yellow Pine and Utah (antimony) and Lithic and Mustang (lithium) developments.
Red Mountain said scale would be a significant long-term competitive advantage in the US critical metals sector and it would continue to assess new venture opportunities, supported by a recent $650,000 share placement.
Numerous Mineral Occurrences
The historic Silver Dollar claims encompass four known alluvial gold and two antimony mineral occurrences southeast of Yellow Pine, including the Silver Dollar mine which features a 10 metre-deep shaft sunk into fractured granodiorite in 1944 to target a massive stibnite vein up to 1m thick.
The vein is “paper-thin” at surface before swelling to a width of approximately 1m at 7.5m depth, and artisanal mining was able to remove pieces of pure stibnite weighing up to 20 kilograms each.
Average grades from 1940s production at Silver Dollar included 17.7% antimony plus 6.3 parts per million silver from stockpile samples.
Untested Potential Remains
Red Mountain said significant untested potential remained for additional antimony, gold, silver, uranium, and possibly mercury mineralisation.
Mercury is likely to occur as pods or shoots where secondary structures intersect the main north-to-northeast-striking fault that cuts the Silver Dollar claims.
Red Mountain’s initial exploration will focus on mapping and sampling of the fault to locate evidence of intersecting structures, hydrothermal fluid flow, brecciation, alteration, and antimony mineralisation.
The company will then use the results to define targets for drill testing.
Analagous Geological Setting
The Silver Dollar mine is located in a geological setting analagous to the large Stibnite project owned by Perpetua Resources.
The Stibnite project hosts a proven and probable reserve of 104 million tonnes at 1.33 grams per tonne gold and 0.06% antimony, for 4.8 million ounces gold and 148 million pounds antimony.
It is also adjacent to Australian explorer Resolution Minerals’ (ASX: RML) recently acquired Horse Heaven project, where rock chip and soil sampling returned high-grade antimony and silver as well as gold assay results.
These results featured the highest grades Resolution has so far recorded at the flagship development.