Ausmon Resources (ASX:AOA) is planning more soil sampling at its Enmore Project in New South Wales after rock assays return elevated zinc, lead, silver and barium.
The results come from the Diesel prospect, previously called West Enmore, within exploration licence EL 9220 about 50km south of Broken Hill in New South Wales.
The 341km2 tenement sits in the Curnamona Province and is held through subsidiary New Base Metals.
The company collected soil and rock samples on 250m by 250m grids across the Diesel and Pine Creek prospects. Rain limited work at Pine Creek, so the company reports only Diesel results.
Portable XRF screening selected 30 rock and 23 soil samples for multi-element analysis at ALS in Adelaide.
The best rock sample returned 1,350 parts per million (ppm) zinc. Another returned 5,370ppm barium, while one assayed 4.7 grams per tonne silver with 600ppm lead. Soil samples returned 70–113ppm zinc and 380–540ppm barium in the northern and southern parts of the grid.
The company says barium is potentially a vector element for base metal mineralisation. It notes the interpretation rests on a limited dataset and remains preliminary.
Sampling so far covers only outcrop and shallow cover. Further outcrop lies to the south and east of the soil grid.
Next steps include additional soil sampling across outcrop and subcrop areas, plus thin-section petrographic analysis of selected rock samples to investigate the source of the barium.
Beyond outcrop, the company will consider shallow air core drilling and ground magnetics.
Ausmon Resources is an Australian explorer advancing rare earth projects in South Australia alongside gold and base metals prospects in New South Wales and Queensland.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
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