Crescent mine still shines for SNS

Vancouver — SNS Silver (SNS-V, SNSFF-O) is showing a hundred-year-old mine can still host significant silver by intercepting almost 2,000 grams silver per tonne over 3 metres at its Crescent mine project in Idaho.

Diamond-drill hole 403 returned 1,920 grams silver over 3.1 metres, including a 0.6-metre section of 4,594 grams silver. The intercept sits roughly 250 metres below surface and 360 metres above the Hooper Tunnel haulage level.

The hole was designed to intersect the South Vein, which had been identified in historic drilling at 1,371 metres depth and intercepted by other drill holes in the current program. The current program has also identified two other veins near this upward projection of the South Vein.

SNS plans to drill roughly 13,500 metres in the current surface-drilling campaign, of which roughly half is complete. The aim of the first phase is to identify ore that lies above the Hooper Tunnel, which is the main haulage adit.

To do so, drills were aimed to intercept two parallel mineralized structures: the Alhambra and South veins. The Alhambra vein structure was the source of most of the historic production at the mine, but the South vein system had only been explored below the Hooper adit.

In October, the company plans to shift to a 30,000-metre underground drilling program.

The Crescent mine lies in the Big Creek Canyon near Kellogg, in the historic Coeur d’Alene mining district. To the east sits the Sunshine mine, one of the richest silver mines in the world, and to the west is the Bunker Hill mine, a large-tonnage lead-silver-zinc producer to which Crescent is connected via a deep crosscut.

In production intermittently since 1917, the Crescent mine has produced over 28 million oz. silver, from an average grade of 736 grams silver. A number of veins and stopes still have ore openly available and milling and processing infrastructure remains from the last shutdown of operations in the early 1990s.

Ore occurences in the Idaho silver belt are generally defined by the east-west Polaris fault on the north and the Big Creek fault to the south. The Big Creek anticline, a prominent major fold, runs through the Crescent mine area.

To prepare for underground drilling, SNS repaired a large cave near the portal, re-established through-going ventilation, and rehabilitated the Hooper Tunnel. The underground program will necessitate some 1,500 metres of crosscutting and drifting, a large portion of which will occur on the Alhambra and South vein structures to also allow first-hand examination.

SNS Silver changed its name, from Strategic Nevada Resources, in late February.