Shortly after commissioning its new mill in Mexico, SilverCrest Mines recently announced some positive results from its underground infill drilling, which was completed during July at the Santa Elena mine in Sonora. A total of 25 closely spaced underground drill holes, amounting to 2,856 m were completed to better define reserves and verify widths and grades for planned production stopes.
“This underground drill program was successful in confirming previous resource model expectations with delineation of high grade zones in the initial stopes scheduled for production in 2014 and 2015,” said Eric Fier, president and COO. “Valuable information was also provided from the program to better define reserves and first stope mine designs. This detailed infill information continues to improve our model and enhances tonnage and grade projections for production planning and budgeting.”
The drill program, with estimated 20-m centers, assisted in stope design and reserve estimation. The results showed comparable widths and grades when reconciled with previous wider-spaced drilling in this area. Cores showed 13 m at 2.54 g/metric ton (mt) gold and 307 g/mt silver, including 0.7 m at 18.25 g/mt gold and 2,900 g/mt silver.
At the end of August, approximately 3,835 m of underground lateral development including ramp access, 1,550 m of ore development on six levels, and 260 m of raise development had been completed by an independent contractor.
