American West Metals has significantly extended the mineralised footprint of its West Desert critical minerals project in Utah after drilling confirmed continuous porphyry and skarn mineralisation over a strike length of 1.6 kilometres.
The latest results follow hot on the heels of last month’s standout discovery hole, which unearthed a barnstorming 108-metre interval grading 25 grams per tonne (g/t) indium alongside zinc and lead, prompting an expanded drilling program.
Assays from the second hole of the campaign returned high-grade zinc, lead, gallium and, notably, gold, while the third hole also delivered, cutting thick intervals of visual zinc, lead and molybdenum mineralisation.
Drilled 350 metres southeast of the existing West Desert deposit, the second drill hole successfully confirmed the prospectivity of the Juab Fault, intersecting a 1.1m zone grading a solid 8.6 per cent zinc and 20.8 grams per tonne (g/t) indium, within a broader 1.8m interval running 5.6 per cent zinc from 577m downhole.
The third hole drilled 370m east of the original discovery hole - 820m east of the West Desert deposit - intersected a combined 66m of visual sphalerite and galena, the primary zinc and lead sulphides, together with an impressive 89m of visual molybdenite.
Management says the visual results significantly strengthen its confidence in the emerging porphyry-skarn system's potential.
American West Metals managing director Dave O’Neill said: “These latest drilling results continue to demonstrate the exceptional scale and prospectivity of the mineral system, with drilling now confirming continuous porphyry and skarn mineralisation over more than 1.6 kilometres.”
The West Desert project sits 160km south-west of Salt Lake City in Utah, one of America’s tier-one mining jurisdictions. Nearby, the historic Apex underground mine made history as the first operation in the world to primarily mine for germanium and gallium - two critical minerals usually recovered only as the by-products of zinc mining.
American West’s project is interpreted as a mammoth zinc-copper skarn and carbonate-replacement deposit, with mineralisation dominated by sulphides in carbonate lenses.
It already hosts a JORC-compliant 33.7-million-tonne resource loaded with critical metals, including zinc, copper and an impressive 23.8 million ounces of indium.
The latest drilling has confirmed West Desert and its porphyry-style mineralisation continues for at least 1.6km along an extensive, greater-than-4km magnetic anomaly, opening multiple new, large-scale targets for follow-up work.
The rods are still turning at the expansive ground, with a fourth drill hole now underway. The company says it is targeting high-grade skarn mineralisation at the eastern extension of the discovery hole.
With a growing mineralised footprint, multiple untested targets lining a four-kilometre magnetic corridor and assays still to come from the latest hole, West Desert is beginning to look less like a single deposit and more like an emerging critical metals district.
If the remaining drill holes continue to produce, American West could be steadily assembling one of the most strategically important critical minerals systems in the United States.
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By Andrew Todd
