Viscount Mining Corp (TSX-V:VML, OTCQB:VLMGF) revealed it is putting together a drill program after Quantec Geoscience identified a possible porphyry metal system at its Silver Cliff project in the historic Hardscrabble silver district in Colorado, USA.
The company hired Quantec earlier this summer to carry a five-line TITAN MT survey over the Silver Cliff caldera at the Passiflora target at the property.
The work identified a zone of "extremely low resistivity in the Silver Cliff caldera", said Viscount, adding that the main body of the conductive anomaly started at a depth of around 450 metres (m) and continued another 1.5km - possibly deeper as this was the extent of the MT survey depth capability.
The length of the anomaly is around 1.4km in the southwest-northeast (SW-NE) direction with a width of at least 700m and is open to the untested north-west, added Viscount.
The company added that a deposit with this large scale size and this high of a conductivity (extremely low resistivity) was "likely explained by a huge system of interconnected mineralized fractures".
READ: Viscount Mining kicks off Phase 4 drilling at its Silver Cliff property in Colorado
"In response to these extraordinary findings, Viscount is currently putting together a drill program aimed at determining the composition of the very high conductivity source. Quantec Geoscience stated this is one of the lowest resistivity anomalies they have ever seen," said Jim MacKenzie, Viscount CEO, in a statement.
"The Quantec survey shows that the geophysical foot print has the indication that we are looking at a potentially significantly large mineral system at the Passiflora."
Jacob Hooker, Silver Cliff's exploration manager, added: "The volcanic history of the region as a caldera makes it completely reasonable to assume that the Passiflora target could be a porphyry at depth. This caldera is one of at least ten eruptive centers of the Central Colorado Volcanic Field (CCVF)."
Hooker noted that four of these have reportedly been further classified as "silicic eruptive centers," of which the Silver Cliff caldera is one.
"Another member of this classification is Newmont's Cripple Creek Mine, a highly profitable, still active deposit located around 70km NNE of the Passiflora.
"The ore being mined at Cripple Creek is primarily from diatremes (volcanic breccia pipes), which overlie sulfide-altered, porphyritic igneous intrusions. A similar system of diatremes and sulfide-hosting igneous intrusions may also exist at depth in the Passiflora target," he added.
Silver Cliff lies 44 miles west-south-west (WSW) of Pueblo, Colorado, and has year-round access by paved road. The property consists of 96 lode claims where high-grade silver, gold and base metal production came from numerous mines during the period 1878 to the early 1900s.
The property is interpreted to encompass a portion of a large caldera and highly altered sequence of tertiary rhyolitic flows and fragmental units which offers potential to host deposits with both precious and base metals.
Viscount Mining is a project generator and explorer with a portfolio of silver and gold properties in the Western United States, including Silver Cliff in Colorado and Cherry Creek in Nevada.
Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com