Argent Minerals (ASX:ARD) has received assays from the first hole of its 8 hole, 1,833 metre diamond drilling program at its flagship Kempfield project in New South Wales.
The hole AKDD197 encountered a shallow gold system, which is located to the south of the known deposit.
Highlights include 10.2 metres at 1.5 g/t gold from 28.0 metres depth.
Drill core samples have been submitted for 5 holes to date, with samples from the remaining 3 holes to be submitted by circa mid-February 2017.
This drilling follows a successful 11-hole program completed in October 2016 which identified four key host horizons, which allows for highly efficient drill targeting in the current campaign.
AKDD197 details
Drill hole AKDD197 intersected 10.2 metres at 1.5 g/t gold from 28.0 metres including 5.0 metres at 2.6 g/t gold, 1.0 metre at 4.4 g/t gold and 1.0 metre at 5.1 g/t gold.
It also encountered a separate zone of 1.0 metre at 1.0 g/t gold from 48.4 metres depth.
There were no significant intersections of silver, lead, copper or zinc.
AKDD197 was designed to test a strong induced polarisation chargeability anomaly overlapping a strong magnetic anomaly to the south of the main deposit, both untested prior to the current drilling program.
Background
The Kempfield volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) project provides investors with exposure to both precious metals being silver and gold together with base metals zinc and lead.
Kempfield hosts 33 million ounces silver, 86,000 ounces gold, 200,000 tonnes of zinc and 97,000 tonnes of lead.
These figures are exclusive of the yet-to-be potential resource at the historic Pine Ridge gold mine, as well as potential additional mineralisation in the Trunkey Creek goldfields.
Any further potential resources identified by the current drill program could act as a catalyst for Argent.
Potential mineralisation remains open to the south, at depth, and to the north.
Drill program objectives
The first four holes are designed to test key stratigraphic positions that may host strata-bound mineralisation and potentially extend mineralisation into areas identified to the northwest and southeast of the main deposit.
This drilling is aimed at defining the bounds of the known mineralisation for future potential resource delineation drilling and resource estimation.
The three drill holes in the south of the Kempfield project area are positioned to intersect key geophysical anomalies that had not been previously drill-tested.
A final drill hole targeted the Quarry Zone, which has been identified as having the appearance of a satellite VHMS feeder area to the main Kempfield deposit.
The Quarries Zone is rich in silver and has moderate grades of zinc and lead.