Adriatic Metals PLC (ASX:ADT) (FSE:3FN) has drilled the highest grade intercept to date in one of two holes at the Rupice prospect within its Vareš zinc-polymetallic project in Bosnia & Herzogovina.
The first of the two holes, BR-22-18, was drilled to acquire gold and silver assay data in the vicinity of historical drilling.
BR-22-18 returned 42 metres at 14.1% zinc, 8.4% lead, 245 g/t silver, 5.7 g/t gold, 1.4% copper and 34% barium sulphate from 222 metres.
The second hole was drilled in the up-dip mineralisation to the west of the high-grade plunge and returned 12 metres at 1.4% zinc, 2.8% lead, 228 g/t silver, 0.8 g/t gold, 0.3% copper and 16% barium sulphate from 74 metres.
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Adriatic chief executive officer Geraint Harris said BR-22-18 had further confirmed the continuity of the thick and high-grade mineralisation as well as “the spectacular precious metals content not previously assayed in the majority of historical drilling”.
He added that the results would be incorporated into the maiden mineral resource estimate for Rupice.
Mineralisation at Rupice is interpreted to be dominantly strata-bound and hosted in the folded sequence of brecciated and sheared sediments dipping about 45 degrees to the northeast.
The mineralisation is visually distinct from the host rock and consists of galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite and barite.
Wider prospective area
Exploration activities in the Rupice area began in 1952 and continued intermittently until 1990, consisting of induced polarisation chargeability geophysics, costeans, exploration adits and drilling.
Chargeability anomalies extend to the southeast between Rupice and the Jurasevac-Brestic prospect, but these trends have not been drill-tested.
Forty-nine historic drill holes for 5,696 metres have been drilled but only 35% of the holes were occasionally sampled for gold and silver assays.
Adriatic’s drilling in 2017 showed a high correlation between precious metals at Rupice and its base metal mineralisation.