Bonanza’s drilling intersects new Poirier sulphide horizons

Bonanza Metals (ASE) says it has intersected some encouraging new sulphide horizons during recent drilling on the western half of its Poirier zinc-copper property near Joutel, Que. Forbex Resources (ME) can earn a 50% interest in the property by contributing $3 million in exploration expenditures.

The Poirier concession hosts a past-producing base metal mine along with a number of sulphide exploration targets where significant copper-zinc values have been intersected during the past several months by Bonanza. A program of some 50,000 ft. of surface diamond drilling is nearing completion and a prefeasibility study is also under way. The company hopes it can prove up enough new reserves to justify an underground program next year.

According to Bonanza, four recently completed holes, which probed for extensions to the previously known underground West zone, cut significant new sulphide horizons in the western half of the property.

Although assay results are not yet available for holes 46-50, the company reports that hole 46 cut 115 of massive sulphides as well as a new zone of sulphide stringers with traces of chalcopyrite. Hole 47 traversed 78 ft. of stringer sulphides, while hole 49 cut another 40-ft. interval of massive sulphides.

Meanwhile, mixed assay results are reported from recent holes completed near the Q-zone — a second horizon being explored in the current drilling program.

Assays from hole 23, which tested a westward extension of the previously known Q-zone, returned three uneconomic intervals over a 104-ft. core length. The results from that intersection are 32 ft. grading 0.18% copper and 0.11% zinc, 44 ft. of 0.08% copper and 0.03% zinc, and 28 ft. grading 0.10% copper and 0.05% zinc.

Previous results in an area 350 ft. west of the Q-zone are 2.8% zinc over 302 ft. including 6.04% zinc over 60 ft. in hole 15, and 3.39% zinc over 36 ft. in hole 16.