Vancouver — Ongoing drilling by
The latest drilling occurred in the West zone. Hole 104 was collared 500 metres east of the high-grade platinum-group-metal (PGM) intercept of hole 101, which had returned 0.35 metre grading 103 grams palladium and 26.7 grams platinum per tonne at a down-hole depth of 962.3 metres.
The new hole cut 8.8 metres of the massive sulphide horizon, returning 1.24% copper, 0.94% nickel and 0.09% cobalt, plus 2.27 grams palladium an 0.3 gram platinum, starting at 843.6 metres down-hole. This was followed by a 13.2-metre section of 1.38% copper, 0.41% nickel, 0.056% cobalt, 1.4 grams palladium and 0.25 gram platinum starting at 860.9 metres down-hole.
About 80 metres farther down-hole, a low-sulphide zone measuring 0.5 metre was encountered. Assays returned 9.9 grams palladium and 1.44 grams platinum. Starfield believes this zone represents a leached area of hydrothermal alteration.
“Visually it’s a different unit,” says company geologist Robert Krause. “The upper high-grade horizon is a biotitic unit, whereas this lower one is a leached-out hydrothermal zone.”
The upper, high-grade PGM zone has been identified in two other holes: no. 95, updip of hole 101, and no. 89, about 240 metres to the east. Results from both are pending.
Geologist John Nicholson, who is reviewing all 104 holes drilled to date, says the footwall hydrothermal zone is much more extensive than the high-grade hangingwall zone. The latter is associated with barite and biotite and appears to be a separate, sub-parallel horizon within the overall gabbroic host sill.
Holes 101 and 104 mark the deepest holes drilled to date on the West zone. The program has increased the inferred resource at Ferguson Lake to 51.7 million tonnes grading 0.92% copper, 0.58% nickel and 1.44 grams combined platinum and palladium.
The estimate is based on a cutoff grade of 1% combined copper and nickel. At a 1.5% cutoff, the resource weighs in at 25.5 million tonnes grading 1.15% copper, 0.87% nickel and 1.86 grams platinum-palladium.
Using a 2% cutoff, it is reduced to 9.3 million tonnes of 1.37% copper, 0.87% nickel and 2.06 grams platinum-palladium.
Be the first to comment on "Starfield proves up Ferguson Lake deposit"