Strickland back in zinc after cyclone setback

Strickland Metals says a maiden diamond drilling program at its Iroquois project in outback Western Australia has produced “fantastic” zinc results, providing a timely boost after being unable to access its site due to bad weather.

The company is today reporting that it has intersected a feeder structure of high-grade zinc mineralisation, with a headline figure of 4.3m going 27 per cent. Assay results have been returned from two of its four diamond drill holes completed for a total of 885.6m. Results are pending for the fourth hole, while hole number 2 was drilled too far to the west to intersect the structure.

Strickland’s best results to date emanate from hole number 3 and feature  the 4.3m at 27 per cent zinc, in addition to 0.1 per cent lead and 19.9 grams per tonne silver from 226.7m. It also includes 58m at 4.3 per cent zinc and 3.7g/t silver from 173m, housing 11.1m at 6.7 per cent zinc and 7.4g/t silver from 176m.

Hole number 1 has returned 26.6m (down-hole width) at 2.5 per cent zinc and lead from 26.4m and 21.2m at 1.5 per cent zinc and lead from 166m.

Management hailed the “fantastic initial results”, saying its two completed holes show strong continuity of mineralisation, which significantly strengthens towards intrusion.

Strickland Metals’ chief executive officer Andrew Bray said: “This demonstrably opens up the 1.8km mapped trend for significant carbonate replacement style mineralisation, as well as skarn type mineralisation closer to the intrusion. Both concepts are high priority and very promising drill targets for future programs.”

Mr Bray says bad weather, including a cyclone that swept through the Wiluna region, had made the project inaccessible in recent weeks and meant most of the core from drill-hole number 4 had not been processed. Field crew are now back on site processing the core, with delivery to a Perth laboratory expected next week and assays about six weeks later.

He added that planning is underway for both a ground-based induced polarisation survey to help the company vector towards further high-grade polymetallic mineralisation, and for follow-up drill programs.

The presence of the feeder-zone structure was inferred from an approximately 1.8km-long coincident copper-zinc-lead soil anomaly and holes number 1 and 3, which are about 300m apart, were the first drill holes to test it.

Iroquois lies north of Wiluna in WA’s Goldfields-Esperance region. The project is 80 per cent-owned by Strickland and the remaionder is taken up by Gibb River Diamonds. It is directly along strike from Rumble Resources’ Earaheedy project, which boasts an inferred mineral resource estimate of 94 million tonnes at 3.1 per cent zinc and lead and 4.1g/t silver for 2.2 million tonnes of zinc, 0.7 million tonnes of lead and 12.6 million ounces contained silver. Strickland controls about 30km of the strike.

The discoveries by Rumble and Strickland support the view that the Earaheedy Basin could prove to be a significant new mineralised province prospective for further zinc-lead mineralisation. Previous drilling at Iroquois has returned 8m at 5.2 per cent zinc from 95m and 5m going 10.1 per cent zinc and lead from 110m.

The most recent assay results will do no harm to Strickland’s plans to spin off its base metals assets into a new company to seek better value for the projects and to focus on developing its Yandal gold projects in central WA. It has completed a series of acquisitions to create two primary projects – the Horse Well gold project and the Millrose project – to consolidate its holdings along the north-eastern flank of the Yandal Greenstone Belt.

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