Anax Metals Limited (ASX: ANX) has announced strong results from metallurgical diamond drilling completed at its Whim Creek Copper-Zinc Project in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The company said that drilling confirmed near-surface massive/semi-massive sulphide and stringer Cu, Pb, Zn, Au, Ag mineralisation. ANX said that multiple zones of near-surface high-grade mineralisation – tens of metres in thickness was intersected.
Anax said that composites for initial ore sorting test work were generated and test work is in progress. The company reported that feasibility studies are rapidly progressing with key work streams well advanced.
Drilling at Whim Creek
The company had completed metallurgical diamond drilling at the Whim Creek Copper-Zinc Project in November 2020. Anax had recently completed its 80% Earn-In Interest in the Project from VentureX Resources Ltd.
At Mons Cupri, a total of four holes (20AMCD001 – 20AMCD004) were completed for 651.5m. Three HQ-diameter holes targeted areas of high and medium-grade mineralisation while one dedicated geotechnical hole (20AMCD004) was completed.
On 25 November 2020, Anax announced that metallurgical drilling intersected visible near-surface matrix, semi-massive to massive sulphide and stringer Cu, Pb, and Zn mineralisation at the Mons Cupri deposit.
The company had now reported the results from continuous XRF-scanning.
Strong results from Whim Creek
The company said that based on the preliminary XRF results obtained from Minalyzer, a total of 31 samples were selected from holes 20AMCD001, 20AMCD002, and 20AMCD003 for calibration purposes. The samples were selected to specifically target the spectrum of grade ranges generated by Minalyzer.
ANX said that the continuous XRF-scanning has reported highly encouraging results. The company reported that all three metallurgical holes encountered a similar mineralisation profile – with near-surface, very high-grade massive/semi-massive, and blebby sphalerite-galena mineralisation followed by high-grade copper mineralisation intersected.
Significant results includes 11m @ 5.01% Zn, 5.22% Pb and 0.87% Cu from 32m in 20AMCD001; 42m @ 2.34% Cu from 43m in 20AMCD001, including 11m @ 4.37% Cu from 43m; 18m @ 5.20% Zn, 2.48% Cu and 1.53% Pb from 60m in 20AMCD002, including 3m @ 10.34% Zn, 3.15% Pb and 2.55% Cu from 60m, and 4m @ 8.08% Zn, 2.96% Cu and 1.85% Pb from 68m; 62m @ 1.90% Cu, 1.03% Zn from 78m in 20AMCD002, including 7m @ 4.75% Cu, 2.74% Zn from 78m; 22m @ 1.88% Cu from 181m in 20AMCD002, including 8m @ 3.00% Cu from 189m; 3m @ 3.62% Zn, 3.43% Pb and 1.41% Cu from 51m in 20AMCD003; and 40m @ 1.95% Cu from 54m in 20AMCD003, including 7m @ 3.51% Cu from 58m and 5m @ 3.38% Cu from 81m.
Gold and silver grades
The company said that the fines assay from the bulk composite returned significant gold and silver grades. ANX said that the laboratory analyses of bulk composites returned a gold assay of 2.08 g/t Au for the high-grade copper composite (MC1) and a silver assay of 89 g/t Ag for the high-grade Zn/Pb composite (MC2).
Updates and next steps
Anax announced that ore sorting test work is currently in progress at both Steinert (Perth) and Tomra (Sydney). The company said that the test work is likely to be completed towards the end of February 2021 and results will be released once the program has concluded.
ANX said that the feasibility study activities are progressing well with numerous work streams in progress. The company said that an update on its planned exploration activities would be reported soon.
* Image courtesy of Anax Metals Limited