Thomson Resources starts drilling at historic Silver Spur deposit in Queensland
Thomson Resources 的钻探活动将包括高达 2,000m 的金刚石和反循环钻探测试深度以及当前资源的走向延伸。
Thomson Resources (ASX: TMZ) has commenced an initial drilling campaign at the historic high-grade Silver Spur mine within its wholly-owned Texas silver-base metals project in south-east Queensland.
The program will comprise up to 2,000 metres of diamond core and reverse circulation drilling, testing depth and strike extensions of the current resource and compelling near-resource exploration targets.
It follows the completion in May of a large dipole-dipole induced polarisation (DDIP) survey at Texas, highlighting seven district-scale clusters of strongly anomalous chargeability anomalies which have not previously been drill tested.
Target cluster
The Silver Spur target cluster is centered on the historic mine of the same name, where mineralisation is closely associated with the northwest trending Stokes Fault linking Silver Spur to the nearby Twin Hills deposit.
Drilling will be conducted by Thomson shareholder Australian Mineral & Waterwell Drilling, using the same multi-purpose rig which recently completed exploration at Thomson’s wholly-owned Lachlan Fold Belt projects in New South Wales.
Background preparation
Thomson executive chairman David Williams said drilling at Silver Spur was preceded by much background preparation.
“This is the culmination of extensive work conducted by our geological consultants and technical team as part of developing mineral resource estimates for the Texas deposits,” he said.
“The outcome of the geophysical surveys and geological studies has unlocked the significant exploration potential of this area and we look forward to reporting the results.”
Structurally-controlled deposit
Silver Spur is a structurally-controlled silver-base metals deposit located 2km southeast of the Twin Hills open pit.
The deposits were mined between 1892 and 1925 from high-grade shoots and halo mineralisation, with Silver Spur producing approximately 100,000 tonnes of ore from a high-grade core of the deposit containing 2.19 million ounces silver (at an average grade of 800 grams per tonne), 690t zinc, 1,050t lead and 990t copper and a gold by-product.
The current mineral resource estimates for the Texas deposits contain in aggregate 660,000t at 54g/t silver, 2.03% zinc, 0.69% lead and 0.09% copper for a grade of 156g/t and contained 3.3Moz (both silver equivalent).