Portable X-ray fluorescence analyses of new drill core show grades of up to 63 grams per tonne silver over 12m from 279m deep, including a 3m section grading 148gpt in one of the holes drilled.
A different hole showed 1327 parts per million antimony over 1.5m from 227m deep.
The antimony potential of Sun Silver’s asset has become more of a talking point for the company following China’s restrictions on exports of the metal last month.
Sun Silver said while the pXRF data confirmed the presence of silver mineralisation and would help it fine-tune its drilling strategy, it would now send the drilling samples to American Assay Labs in Reno for proper analysis.
“The portable XRF analysis is used to define the mineralised zone by silver, arsenic and antimony levels which appear anomalous to the rest of the hole,” the company said.
“These results are considered semi-quantitative and are being used as a guide to define mineralised intercepts.”
Though actual assays are still outstanding, Sun Silver executive director Gerard O’Donovan said the early results boded well for another Maverick Springs resource upgrade given grades up to 605gpt silver have been encountered beyond the resource.
The explorer just last week upgraded the project’s resource to 423 million ounces at 67.25 grams per tonne silver equivalent, using a cut-off grade of 30.86gpt AgEq.
