ASX-listed mineral explorer Surefire Resources has tabled a clutch of high-grade, heavy metal hits following a reconnaissance rock chip sampling and mapping exercise at its Kooline lead-silver project, about 200km from Paraburdoo in WA. The bumper results include 16.2 and 14.2 per cent lead with traces of anomalous silver running 41 and 55 grams per tonne.
The campaign follows the discovery of three “exciting” new bedrock conductors at the project late last year.
Surefire unveiled the trio after running the rule over legacy airborne electromagnetic data and says the yet-to-be drilled conductors are tied to a suite of historic lead-silver mines which are scattered around the revered Kooline lead-silver mineral field.
Management coined the targets “Mt Conspicuous”, “Phar Lap NW” and “Northerly”.
Recent exploration efforts by Surefire have been focused around the 600m long Mt Conspicuous target. The anomaly sits in a structural corridor shared with a historic namesake mine and is interpretated to house near surface mineralisation that extends to a depth of 400m.
The company believes Mt Conspicuous is linked to a segment of a large-scale fault system that has driven mineral rich fluids to the zone’s surface.
Despite the anomaly extending beyond the eastern limits of its geophysical dataset it does hold ground in the area, setting up an intriguing and potentially lucrative play if the target is appropriately mineralised.
Surefire Resources Managing Director, Vladimir Nikolaenko said:“Reconnaissance sampling in the Mt Conspicuous area supports the Company’s interpretation that the Mt Conspicuous AEM anomaly is associated with high-grade lead-silver mineralisation. This demonstrates the prospect has the potential to yield new discoveries in this under-explored historic mining field. The next steps at Kooline are detailed mapping and sampling ahead of a follow-up ground-based EM survey to refine coinciding geophysical and geochemical anomalies, and drilling.”
It's not the first time rock chips have raised eyebrows at the project with previous efforts producing up to 55.3 per cent lead, 249 grams per tonne silver, 2.62 per cent copper and 38 g/t gold.
The Kooline project is strategically located about 55km south of Northern Star’s Paulsens gold mine in the Ashburton province of WA.
Kooline takes in about 400 square kilometres of sedimentary-based stratigraphy and includes three mineralised horizons that stretch across almost 50km of strike and hosts high-grade silver and lead mineralisation.
Surefire’s Kooline lead-silver project sits in the namesake mineral field which has historically yielded high-grade silver and lead from over 40 shallow mine workings between 1940 and 1950. Despite the slew of legacy production, the area has seen only limited exploration over the past decade.
The company is also working on a trio of projects in Western Australia across the commodities of gold, iron ore and vanadium with all three brimming with potential.
At Surefire’s Yidby gold project in the Murchison region of WA the explorer is advancing a new precious metal discovery with thick, high-grade intersections struck in several campaigns.
Stand out results from a recently completed RC program include 4m at 10.4 grams per tonne gold from 72m downhole.
The company’s vanadium interest is held at its Unaly Hill and Victory Bore projects in the Mid West of WA. The company holds a combined resource across the two projects of 237 million tonnes grading up to 0.44 and is on a journey towards a Pre-Feasibility Study for the resource.
The story is a similar one in its iron ore holding. The company says a scoping study indicates a low capital operation producing premium high grade magnetite concentrate is economically viable. The company currently has a resource of 192 million tonnes with a magnetite grade of 36.6 per cent. More work with the drill bit is scheduled across coming months.
Despite the modest silver sniffs acquired in Surefire’s latest campaign at Kooline historical exploration in the zone has delivered grades going as high as 580 g/t or close to 19 ounces per tonne of the semi-precious metal. The legacy strikes along with the solid lead hits could make for an interesting end of year as work at the operation gathers steam.
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