Mining

Zenith Minerals and Rumble Resources expand Earaheedy zinc-lead drilling program

Go to Danica Cullinane author's page
By Danica Cullinane - 
Rumble Resources Zenith Minerals ASX RTR ZNC drilling Chinook Magazine zinc lead

The additional drilling will continue to define the limits of the Chinook mineralisation then move towards the Magazine and Navajoh prospects.

Copied

Zenith Minerals (ASX: ZNC) and Rumble Resources (ASX: RTR) have announced an expansion of the current drilling program at their jointly-owned Earaheedy zinc-lead project in Western Australia by 10,000 metres.

This upgrade, which will bring the total planned drilling to 40,000m, follows last month’s announcement of an 125% increase in the zinc-lead mineralised footprint at the Chinook prospect to more than 3km by 1.8km.

The drilling program has been designed to scope out the size and potential of the Chinook zinc-lead discovery with the additional drilling continuing to focus on the boundary limits of the mineralised footprint.

“In addition to this initiative, the increase in drilling will now push down towards the Magazine and Navajoh prospects located some 10km to the southeast within the Earaheedy joint venture,” Zenith chairman Peter Bird said.

Half of the original 30,000m budgeted drill program has now been completed with assays pending.

A third reverse circulation rig has arrived on-site to assist in scoping out the overall size of the shallow northeast dipping mineralisation at Chinook and once the limits are defined, drilling will focus on the multiple inferred feeder structures which contain near-surface higher-grade zinc-lead-manganese-silver mineralisation.

Major drilling program

A total of 88 reverse circulation holes have been completed for 14,988m to date with assays from four holes already returned. A further 32 holes are awaiting analysis, 16 assays are in transit to the lab and the remaining 36 assays remain on site.

Eight diamond holes were completed for 904m however several attempts to gain full recovery of core has been unsuccessful due to water and alternating hard and soft layers within the mineralised zone. Sonic drilling is now being trialled to optimise core recoveries.

The sonic drilling program will initially twin three drill holes. The first has been completed and returned “very high” (95%) core recoveries, Rumble reported.

Surface geophysics

Gravity and passive seismic surveys have also been completed at the Earaheedy project and are currently being processed and interpreted.

The surveys aimed to complement the airborne magnetics and aid in understanding the structural controls that upgrade the tenor of the zinc-lead-manganese-silver mineralisation of the very large sediment hosted base metal system.

The Earaheedy project

The Earaheedy project, located 110km northeast of the WA town of Wiluna, is 75% owned by Rumble and 25% owned by Zenith.

It has an exploration target of between 100-120 million tonnes grading between 3.5-4.5% zinc-lead.

The partners announced a major zinc-lead discovery at Chinook in April and followed this up a month later by announcing the emergence of a large sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) style system at Earaheedy.

Chinook lies 12km from the project’s two other main prospects, Magazine and Navajoh.