Walkabout Resources Ltd (ASX:WKT) has kicked off its maiden 2,500-metre diamond drilling program at the Blackcraig Lead-Zinc-Silver Project within the Crown Estate in Dumfries and Galloway, southern Scotland.
The company is also undertaking a regional airborne drone-flown magnetic survey over about 150 square kilometres covering all the historic mines and trial areas for lead-zinc, nickel and gold prospects.
Encouragingly, Walkabout is expanding its exploration footprint in Scotland to include extensions and additional potential polymetallic mineralised trends.
“Very prospective region”
Walkabout CEO Andrew Cunningham said: “The commencement of drilling at Blackcraig marks the first exploration drilling undertaken by the company on its projects in Scotland.
“With both zinc, lead and copper currently trading above or close to their 10-year highs it is time to be exploring for these commodities in an area known to host high-grade mineralisation.
“Our current drilling program will greatly improve our understanding of this very prospective region.”
Drilling campaign
Drilling will target areas beneath the old underground mine as well as potential parallel structures to the main historical mining trend as identified through geological mapping and a close-spaced ground magnetics survey completed in 2020.
This is the first modern exploration program to be undertaken in the area since the 1980s with work conducted by the company to date restricted to float samples from the numerous spoil heaps from the old mines.
Assay results of up to 30% zinc, 9.1% lead, 7.4% copper and 36.1 g/t silver in individual rock samples confirm the very high-grade nature of the orebody as described in the literature and historical reports on mining at Blackcraig.
Drilling will be carried out by Priority Drilling of Ireland and is expected to take around 2-3 months to complete, with first assay results expected while the drill program is ongoing.
Location of planned holes at the historic Blackcraig East and Blackcraig West mines.
Regional drone-flown magnetic survey
A regional, drone borne aeromagnetic survey is planned for around 150 square kilometres of the most prospective portion of the licence areas, covering historic workings and trial areas, and prospects identified by the British Geological Survey during regional exploration programs in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The survey will also cover the Talnotry nickel occurrence, a historic (19th Century) trial, interpreted to represent magmatic nickel mineralisation.
This survey will be conducted by UAVE Ltd using the Prion Mk3 UAV, a purpose-built fixed-wing drone with a nose-mounted Geometric G-832A sensor, flown at about 100 metres above the surface using a 200 x 500-metre survey grid spacing for more than 2,000 flown line kilometres
The magnetic survey aims to help provide greater geological understanding, particularly structural information to help identify and define regional structures and trends that are believed to fundamentally control the mineralisation identified in the region.
This will refine target areas of interest for ground exploration, underpinning the company’s objective of creating a “pipeline” of prospects to evaluate, and if warranted, advance towards initial drilling.
The UAVE team monitoring surveying from the mobile flight centre.
New tenements
Walkabout has recently been granted an additional 250 square kilometre licence in Scotland covering the potential along-strike continuation of the Blackcraig Trend (Newton Stewart Licence) and numerous historic trials and workings.
The newly granted Gatehouse of Fleet licence (red polygon).
The area is renowned for mining in the 1800s and the Pibble Mine was the most famous working in the area with a shaft sunk to about 75 metres.
Records indicate up 214 tons of copper and 29 tons of lead, (plus silver) was mined between 1849 and 1855.
Importantly, the Pibble Mine potentially forms a linear series of workings with the mines around Blackcraig suggesting a regional-scale control, and overall mineralised trend of up to 10 kilometres.