Eastern Metals Ltd (ASX:EMS) is back at the Evergreen Discovery Zone at Browns Reef Project in western New South Wales to prosecute a follow-up diamond drilling campaign.
The four-hole, 1,325-metre program, which aims to extend the Evergreen Zone along strike to the north and south, has kicked off following the receipt of all necessary approvals.
First 300-metre hole drilled
The company drilled its first hole, with a target length of 300 metres, on Saturday, and the program is expected to wrap in around four weeks.
Eastern's initial drilling program at Browns Reef was completed in March 2022 with the discovery of the Evergreen Zone, with mineralisation – including high-grade zinc – intersected in all four holes drilled.
Significant high-grade zinc
The company believes it’s onto a significant high-grade zinc zone with elevated levels of lead, copper, silver and gold.
Its initial program indicated that the Evergreen Zone extends over a strike length of more than 100 metres and vertical depth of 300 metres and remains open along strike and at depth.
The latest efforts will focus on testing for extensions to the pinpointed mineralised zone discovered earlier this year.
Managing director and CEO Wayne Rossiter said: “The follow up round of drilling is designed to extend the Evergreen Zone discovery along strike to both the north and south, at a sufficient drill spacing to allow the potential estimation of an inferred resource in the future.
“Two step-out holes will be drilled to both the north and south, approximately 50 metres from holes BRD018 and BRD019.
“Two holes will be drilled to target the lode, approximately 50 metres above the intersections in the same two holes.
“We are particularly interested in mineralisation that may be encountered in the southern holes where elevated copper mineralisation was identified in our maiden drilling program.”
About Browns Reef
Browns Reef lies five kilometres to the west of the town of Lake Cargelligo, around 470 kilometres west of Sydney. The area surrounding the Browns Reef base metal deposit is used for agricultural purposes, including grazing and cropping.
The known deposit at Browns Reef occupies a small part of the tenement. Most of the historical deeper drilling to date has been confined to a zone approximately 2.7 kilometres long in the central to southern part of the tenement and is on the eastern flank of the interpreted 9-kilometre-long syncline structure.