Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR) has secured its third exploration licence in Brittany, France, that has demonstrated potential for volcanogenic massive sulphide zinc-lead-copper-silver deposits.
The Merléac PER licence covers 411 square kilometres and includes the Porte-aux-Moines deposit that has strong similarities to other VMS deposits such as Rosebery, Woodlawn and Que River in Australia.
Extensive work at Porte-aux-Moines by the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières during the 1980s included about 9,200 metres of diamond drilling and two kilometres of underground development.
This defined high grade zinc-lead-copper-silver mineralisation up to 20 metres wide to a depth of about 300 metres from surface.
Variscan plans to complete a small drilling program to generate an updated Resource meeting JORC 2012 guidelines.
It believes that Porte-aux-Moines may be part of a cluster of base metal deposits that typify VMS systems and considers the exploration potential immediately around the deposit to be very good.
Merléac covers an estimated 70 strike kilometres of fertile host lithologies.
Within these rocks recent work by the company has identified a number of outcropping gossans up to 400-500 metres in strike length with anomalous base metal assays in rock chips interpreted to represent the oxidised expressions of underlying sulphide-rich zones.
It plans to complete additional follow-up gossan sampling and mapping and will fly a large VTEM survey over the more prospective parts of the belt to confirm the location and geometry of potential VMS deposits once it gains government approvals.
Additional licence applications in other prospective regions of France are currently undergoing the approvals process.
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