Rox Resources has reported an initial inferred mineral resource for the Teena zinc-lead deposit on the Reward project in Australia’s Northern Territory. Teck Resources Australia has an option to earn a 70% interest in the project by spending up to A$15 million on project exploration by the end of August 2018. As of March, Teck had spent approximately A$13.85 million.
The Teena inferred mineral resource totals 58 million mt grading 11.1% zinc and 1.6% lead, for 6.5 million (mt) of contained zinc and 0.9 million mt of contained lead. The mineralization is similar to mineralization at the currently producing McArthur River zinc-lead mine 8 km east of Teena.
To date, 22 drill holes have been drilled on the Teena deposit, of which 17 intersected the mineralization that was used to define the inferred resource. The mineralization occurs as sediment-hosted massive sulphides, with base metals precipitated as stratiform sulphide minerals within fine-grained carbonaceous sediments.
(www.roxresources.com.au)
Fission Uranium announced a C$13.3-
million summer program at its Patterson Lake South property in Canada’s Athabasca Basin, including a 52-hole, 15,200-m drill program focused primarily on zone expansion and regional exploration targets. A 32-line-km Moving Loop Electromagnetic (MLTDEM) survey is targeting the Patterson Lake Corridor to identify further drill targets. Other activities, including geotechnical and metallurgical work, will be carried out in preparation for a prefeasibility study of the Triple R deposit.
Drilling will include 36 holes focused on growing and connecting established mineralized zones along a 2.58-km mineralized trend that remains open in multiple directions. A particular focus will be two new, high-grade zones discovered during Fission’s 2016 winter program.
Sixteen regional exploration holes will test a series of high-priority exploration targets on multiple basement electromagnetic conductors within the Patterson Lake Conductive Corridor to the north, east, and west of the 2.58-km mineralized trend.
(www.fissionuranium.com)
Millrock Resources has initiated surface exploration at the Los Chinos and Los Cuarentas gold projects in Sonora state, Mexico. Centerra Gold can earn a 70% interest in the projects by completing $5 million in exploration expenditures at Los Chinos and $2 million at Los Cuarentas over a five-year period. Millrock will be the exploration operator for the first two years, and longer at Centerra’s option.
At Los Chinos, 104 km north of Hermosillo, a comprehensive program of geological mapping and soil and rock sampling, with concurrent magnetic and gradient induced polarization geophysical surveys, is under way. Three zones of mineralization have so far been delineated. Early soil sample results show that the El Camino zone is of greater extent than indicated by prior work. Anomalous gold, lead, and arsenic have been detected over an area measuring 700 m long and up to 500 m wide.
At Los Cuarentas, 160 km northeast of Hermosillo, a stream sediment sampling program has been initiated. The main focus of current exploration will be at an area showing alteration typical of the upper levels of an epithermal mineralizing system. Prior work by Millrock has indicated gold-bearing epithermal quartz veining.
(www.millrockresources.com)
American Lithium is proceeding with a Phase 2 exploration program on the North Bowl and South Bowl playas of its Fish Lake Valley lithium brine properties in Esmeralda county, Nevada. A 13-hole reverse circulation drilling program at the North Bowl Playa will evaluate stratigraphy, conduct brine chemistry analyses, and determine preliminary well hydrology parameters such as permeability and transmissivity.
Brine samples will be collected for inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry analyses (ICP-AES). The sampling results will be combined with previously collected screening and drill-hole data and incorporated into the company’s detailed structural model and hydrogeologic information. Reverse circulation drilling will then be conducted on selected sites to depths of up to 150 m to evaluate stratigraphy and collect brine samples for ICP-AES and general chemistry analyses.
American Lithium also plans to conduct a brine auger sampling program to test for the presence of lithium brine in the shallow soil system of the South Bowl Playa. Brine samples will undergo ICP-AES analyses for metals and classification of accumulated levels of lithium, boron, potassium, and magnesium.
(www.americanlithiumcorp.com)
