First drilling at Rebel Peak has been “most exciting” for Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB), with the maiden campaign already returning thick gold and silver mineralisation outside Independence’s resource estimate.
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The Australian explorer reported multiple gold-silver drill intercepts outside the current near-surface MRE at the Independence project in Nevada, uncovered during early RC drilling at Rebel Peak along the “Rebel” trend.
The “transformative” hits help Black Bear extend known mineralisation and will now be folded into an upcoming MRE update at the State-side project.
“Our drilling at Independence is rapidly transforming our understanding of the project’s scale,” Black Bear chief Dennis Lindgren lauded today.
“We are continuing to intercept thick, high-grade gold and silver mineralisation along the Rebel trend, successfully pushing the boundaries 280 metres further north.
“Most exciting is this system outcrops at the surface at Rebel Peak and remains open, tracking down-dip for over 560m. These results are very encouraging and demonstrate the potential to expand our 1.4Moz estimate.”
Rebel Trend was picked as a perfect early Independence target thanks to its untested near-surface resource; Black Bear has now confirmed the presence of the Pumpernickel-Chert host sequence on-site there. The maiden campaign also intersected several stacked mineralised lodes, the explorer flagged.
Key intercepts from early-doors RC drilling included 47.3 metres at 0.4 grams per tonne gold equivalent from 24.4 metres (including 4.6m at 1.3g/t AuEg) and 61 metres at 0.4 grams per tonne from 13.7 metres.
Mineralised lodes have been intercepted all across the northern-half of the Independence project, too, and are shown to dip below the current limits of the near-surface estimate. The grades raked in from the step-out drilling are “consistent with the existing JORC-compliant resource,” Black Bear has said.
Pre-update, Independence hosts a total gold resource of around 1.4 million ounces. That total resource is made up of a near-surface chert-hosted epithermal component as well as a deeper, high-grade skarn resource.
Heading into Friday, BKB has been at $1.06/sh.
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