Standout intersections include 143m grading 1.1g/t gold, 3g/t silver and 0.9% lead+zinc (228 gram-metres) from surface at the Red Rock prospect and 37.1m at 0.2g/t gold, 422g/t silver and 1.5% lead+zinc (230 gram-metres) from surface at White Rock.
Top grades of 3050g/t silver, 79g/t gold and 41% zinc+lead were also noted.
Intersections of 100 gram-metres (g/t multiplied by thickness in metres) are generally considered by the resource industry to be an indicator of an economic deposit.
For Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM), the validation of these historical intersections at the two prospects is a clear sign of the prospectivity of the Drake project in the prolific New England Fold Belt.
This is particularly true given that Red Rock and White Rock, which are 10km apart with limited historical exploration and drilling completed between them, are just two of more than 30 prospects at the project.
Drill intercepts aren’t all that the company has available.
LGM recently dusted off extensive high-grade antimony and gold rock chips over the Lunatic Field that are indicative of mineralisation similar to that found at Larvotto Resources’ (ASX:LRV) Hillgrove Mine – a top-10 global antimony deposit – about 190km to the south.
“With gold and silver prices hitting record highs, Legacy Minerals is pleased to be steadily progressing our Drake gold and silver project. The recently verified broad and high-grade gold-silver intercepts, with substantial levels of zinc, copper and lead, continue to build on the compelling targets for future drill testing,” managing director Christopher Byrne said.
“The high grades (of) up (to) 3050g/t silver, 79g/t gold and 41% zinc-lead combined, in historical drilling, have now been verified, digitised and brought into our project database. We have also been able to validate 14 separate 100g/t AuEq x metre intersections at two prospects located more than 10km apart.
“The high number of these 100g/t AuEq x metre intersections is a strong indicator of the Drake project’s potential to host significant gold and silver mineralisation.”
LGM is carrying out reconnaissance and rock chip campaigns across the Drake project with a focus on the historical copper mines in the district and gold-antimony areas in the north.
“The team is in the field, ground-truthing historical data and finalising access in several key areas in preparation for future exploration activities, including geophysics, surface sampling and drilling,” Byrne added.
The company also plans to apply modern geophysics and geochemistry to the broader caldera structure and undertake a holistic and systematic exploration approach.
This will test areas historically overlooked by previous miners and explorers, who focused primarily on the mining centre of Mt Carrington.
Reprocessing and modelling of a large amount of historical geophysical data is currently underway while the results from interpretation of satellite Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) work to identify historical shafts, adits and outcrop for follow-up field validation, are expected in early November.
The company is also assessing the use of large-scale geological surveys such as airborne mobile magneto-tellurics.
