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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Impressive new discovery at Silvertip, strong Kensington gold North of 60 Mining News – April 29, 2022
The camp at Coeur's Silvertip mine project in Northern BC.
Coeur Mining Inc. April 28 reported that its first-quarter exploration has made an intriguing new resource expansion discovery at the Silvertip Mine project in Northern British Columbia, and drills have cut high-grade gold at Kensington that shows promise for extending the life of the Southeast Alaska mine.
At Silvertip, Coeur is building resources that it can upgrade to reserves ahead of restarting operations at the high-grade silver mine.
Going into 2022, Silvertip hosted 2.82 million tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 9.35 oz/t (26.3 million oz) silver, 10.46% (389.4 million lb) zinc, and 5.55% (312.6 million lb) lead; plus 2.35 million tons of inferred resource averaging 7.57 oz/t (17.8 million oz) silver, 8.98% (422.3 million lb) zinc, and 4.27% (200.7 million lb) lead.
Coeur began its 2022 drilling at Silvertip with two underground core rigs focused on resource infill drilling within the Discovery and Southern Silver zones.
The company also logged and shipped core samples from the 2021 drilling to labs for assaying.
Assay results from the late 2021 surface drilling to the west of the Camp Creek zone returned one of the highest grade-thickness intervals ever encountered at Silvertip, leading to the discovery of Camp Creek West.
Highlights from the drilling at the Camp Creek West discovery include:
• 12 meters averaging 459.6 grams g/t (13.4 ounces per ton) silver, 15.1% zinc, and 8.7% lead in hole CCF21-PAD03-015.
• 6.2 meters averaging 778.3 g/t (22.7 oz/t) silver, 13.6% zinc, and 14.7% lead in hole CCF21-PAD05-026.
"Recent assays from the newly discovered Camp Creek West zone of Silvertip are among the best results ever returned at the property and underscore the potential of what we believe is a truly world-class deposit," said Coeur Mining President and CEO Mitchell Krebs. "In addition to the impressive grade and thickness of the Camp Creek West discovery, its location across a fault zone not previously known to contain ore-grade material has the potential to significantly expand the extent of this deposit."
It had previously been assumed the rock that typically hosts high-grade silver had been eroded away on the west side of the Camp Creek fault, so no drilling had ever been carried out in this area before.
CCF21-PAD03-015, however, encountered a new chimney, or pipe-like, system carrying high-grade silver in this underexplored area of the Silvertip property.
The company says modeling of data from a SkyTEM geophysical flown last year suggests that the new Camp Creek discovery may extend more than a mile (two kilometers) from current drilling.
For the remainder of 2022 at Silvertip, Coeur expects to continue infill drilling in the Southern Silver and Central zones from underground. An additional surface core rig is expected to be added following the snowmelt to perform expansion drilling at Camp Creek West.
Coeur's first-quarter program at Kensington, which lies about 180 miles southwest of Silvertip, focused on infill drilling at Elmira and Kensington Zone 30 from underground and surface core drilling at Jualin.
Infill drilling at Kensington Zone 30 has tapped strong gold mineralization in the upper reaches of the main Kensington orebody.
"Kensington has recently returned strong grade-thicknesses in Kensington Zone 30 as we prioritize further mine life extensions," said Krebs.
Hole K21-2050-216-X01A, drilled in the uppermost area of Kensington Zone 30, cut 2.5 meters averaging 85.8 g/t (2.5 oz/t) gold and 5.2 metes averaging 21.6 g/t gold.
Coeur says these grades are similar to the higher-grade Jualin deposit but are the tellurium-type ore typically encountered in the Kensington deposit, which provides the bulk of Kensington's gold production.
The company also reported that drills tapped strong gold mineralization at Elmira, a zone associated with the Kensington deposit that has recently been added to the mine plan.
EL21-0850-156-X22, an Elmira expansion hole, cut three meters averaging 25.7 g/t gold and 2.6 meters averaging 6.2 g/t gold.
During the remainder of 2022, Coeur's exploration is expected to prioritize infill drilling at Elmira and Eureka; expansion drilling around the edges of Elmira, Johnson, and Jennifer; surface expansion drilling at Jualin and the Valentine prospect; and test new areas of Kensington Zone 30 and the southern portion of Kensington.
Going into 2022, Kensington hosted 1.35 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.194 oz/t (261,000 oz) gold.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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