Sipa Resources Ltd (ASX:SRI) is encouraged by early indications from its first-ever drill program at the 100% owned Skeleton Rocks Project in the Western Australian Goldfields with highly prospected greenstones intersected.
The company is making rapid progress with the 4,000-metre aircore drilling program focused on greenstone units prospective for gold, nickel-copper and lithium mineralisation
Around 50% of the planned program has been completed testing shallowly buried greenstone units in favourable structural positions adjacent to a major regional fault.
Sipa managing director Pip Darvall said, “It’s great to be out drilling so early in the year at one of our 100% owned WA projects.”
Positive indications
Two adjacent holes have intercepted a 20-40 metre interval of dolerite with abundant quartz/pyrite+/- pyrrhotite veins and patchy biotite alteration.
These initial positive indications have led Sipa to peg an additional tenement nearby to cover the inferred continuation of the prospective units.
"An amazing start”
"If these early indications are anything to go by, Skeleton Rocks certainly has excellent untapped exploration potential,” Darvall said.
"This is an amazing start for the project, which is located in close proximity to the gold mining centre at Marvel Loch, and we are looking forward to more positive results as the program progresses.”
The Skeleton Rocks project covers outcropping and interpreted greenstone units prospective for gold, lithium and nickel-copper-platinum group element deposits with limited to no previous drilling ever completed in these areas.
Sipa’s Skeleton Rocks Project and nearby tenement holders in the heart of WA’s Goldfields. Note the location of current drilling and the recently pegged additional tenement E77/2918.
Testing initial targets
Current drilling is testing initial targets generated from Sipa’s detailed aeromagnetic surveys and recent auger soils.
Basement rocks in this area are obscured under shallow cover, with a relatively thin residual weathering profile above fresh rock encountered so far.
Aircore drilling to blade refusal has intersected fresh basement at typical depths of 10-25 metres. A hammer bit has been used to penetrate deeper where units of particular interest are encountered.
The type of veining intersected so far is encouraging for potential gold mineralisation in a similar style to that encountered in gold deposits around 30 kilometres to the east in the Southern Cross greenstone belt and numerous other locations throughout the Goldfields.
At this stage no assays have been completed and none are expected to be available for at least two months given current laboratory turnaround times.
New tenement pegged
This early geological encouragement has led Sipa to peg another tenement nearby, E77/2918 covering the inferred continuation of the prospective units along a major regional structure, the Koolanooka Fault.
Drilling is ongoing and further results will be reported as they become available.