Aurania Resources Ltd (TSX-V:ARU, OTCQB:AUIAF). reported that drilling from SH-004 had returned a high-grade intercept of 12% zinc (around 273 pounds per metric tonne), 5 grams per tonne (g/t) silver and 61 g/t gallium over 2 meters (m) at the Tiria-Shimpia target on its flagship Lost Cities-Cutucu project in Ecuador.
The Toronto, Ontario-based junior mineral exploration company said the drill intercept is from a 5.5 kilometer (km) long area of “elevated metal values” in the soil — one of many such zones in the 22 km long, 3 km wide, Tiria-Shimpia target area in the central part of the company's Lost Cities - Cutucu project area.
For context, Aurania pointed out that the resource grade at Glencore's McArthur River Mine in Australia, formerly known as the HYC base metal deposit, was reported to be 237 million tonnes of 9.2% zinc, 4.1% lead and 41 g/t silver, arranged in eight layers that are 1m-to-5m thick. The McArthur River base metals deposit extended over 2 square kilometers.
READ: Aurania Resources intersects targeted silver-zinc mineralization at the Tiria-Shimpia target in Ecuador
Aurania said that despite its intercept being at a depth of 37m vertically below surface, the sulphide minerals have been weathered, indicating that “deeper drilling would be required” to intersect unweathered sulphide mineralization.
“The next step at Tiria-Shimpia would be to consider drilling deeper to intersect the zinc-silver shoots at depth, well below the depth of weathering,” said the company. The shoots are expected to contain high-grade silver and zinc, it added.
While elaborating on other key developments on the project, Aurania said drilling has started at TSN1-009 at the Tsenken target and is currently at a depth of around 350m. The hole is planned to run to a depth of approximately 500m.
“The target being tested in Hole TSN1-009 at Tsenken is copper-silver in sedimentary layers that originally contained salt and associated sulphate minerals that accumulated in salars similar to the salt-lakes present in the desert in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia today,” said the company. In other words, the target of Hole TSN1-009 is copper-silver mineralization in evaporite mineral beds within the sedimentary layering.
Meanwhile, an access agreement has been signed at the company's Awacha target, which appears to be a cluster of porphyries. “The goal of fieldwork will be to refine the porphyry targets in the Awacha area,” noted the company. The fieldwork includes mapping of alteration minerals around many porphyries, as well as soil sampling in a regular grid over the geophysical features and stream systems in which sediment sampling detected elevated metal content.
Finally, Aurania said that Professor Gregor Borg is preparing a summary of his findings following his recent visit to site. “We expect that a video summary will be available in the coming weeks for all to view,” said the company.
Aurania’s Lost Cities - Cutucu project is located in the Jurassic Metallogenic Belt in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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