Sunstone Metals delivers ‘outstanding’ assay from drilling at Limon gold-silver target
Sunstone Metals (ASX: STM) has announced an “outstanding” 269 metre intersection grading 1.05 grams per tonne gold equivalent (AuEq) at its high-grade Limon epithermal gold-silver discovery within the Bramaderos project in southern Ecuador.
The full assay contained 82g/t gold and 18.5g/t silver from 74m including 124m at 1.93g/t AuEq (1.54g/t gold and 31.8g/t silver) from 190m; and 11m at 14.15g/t AuEq (12.33g/t gold and 149.3g/t silver) from 280m.
The result is believed to have significantly increased the size of Limon, doubling the known true width of the central shoot to approximately 125m.
The reported hole was drilled at right angles to many of the previous holes and is expected to have an impact on the scale of the gold-silver mineralisation.
More broadly, the drilled gold-silver epithermal system lies within the Limon alteration zone (measuring 1.7 kilometres by 700m), which hosts potential for additional gold-silver mineralised bodies.
Large and shallow discovery
Sunstone managing director Malcolm Norris said the latest assays showed Limon was a large and shallow discovery which was continuing to grow.
“This latest intersection significantly expands the dimensions of Limon, which now has key scale similarities with many open pit gold operations,” he said.
“We have numerous wide intersections of more than 1g/t AuEq with zones of high-grade mineralisation which are returning very high peak gold-silver assays… Limon is now a multi-ounce per tonne system in some areas.”
The results are expected to help underpin an exploration target planned for before year end and pave the way for a “very large” gold-copper-silver development across the wider project.
Target location
The Limon target area is located 2.7km north-east of the Bramaderos project’s other gold-copper prospects at Brama, Alba and Melonal.
The project currently hosts a porphyry mineral resource estimate of 2.7 million ounces gold equivalent at Brama-Alba, and an exploration target of between 3.3Moz and 8.6Moz gold equivalent within 255Mt to 360Mt at a grade of between 0.40g/t and 0.74g/t AuEq.
Mr Norris said there was “abundant evidence” for the Limon orebody to deliver a significant standalone operation or a starter pit opportunity for the large-tonnage Bramaderos porphyry development.