Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB) has returned ‘high-grade’ silver intercepts up to 1,333 grams per tonne at its Shafter Silver Project in Texas, US.
The drilling program validated historic results and supported potential extensions outside the current foreign mineral resource estimate (MRE).
Key intercepts include 11.9m @ 148g/t silver (Ag) from 78.9m in hole SFD020, including 0.5m @ 1,333g/t.
Hole SFD022 returned 3.8m @ 171g/t Ag from 146.2m, including 1.1m @ 328g/t, while SFD023 intersected 2.8m @ 116g/t Ag from 106.9m to end-of-hole.
Twin holes SFD020 and SFD022 returned thicker and higher-grade intervals than their historic counterparts.
SFD020 twinned hole SD183, which previously returned 5.8m @ 109g/t Ag, while SFD022 twinned AMAX1261, which returned 0.9m @ 157g/t Ag.
“The latest drilling has delivered another strong set of high-grade silver results at Shafter, including 11.9m at 148g/t Ag with 0.5m at 1,333g/t Ag,” CEO Dennis Lindgren says.
“The results are significant because they validate known high-grade zones and support potential extensions outside the current foreign MRE, with the twin holes returning thicker and higher-grade intervals than the comparable historic drilling.”
The Shafter Project spans approximately 4km of strike in Presidio County, Texas, within a carbonate sequence extending 1,600km from northern Mexico through southwest Texas.
The project sits on an extension of Mexico’s Eastern Sierra Madre Belt, home to Peñasquito, the world’s fifth-largest silver-producing mine.
Mineralisation occurs as manto-style carbonate replacement hosted in the Mina Grande Formation. The historic Presidio Mine produced 35.2 million ounces of Ag at an average grade of 521g/t between 1883 and 1942.
Recent drilling has also highlighted polymetallic potential beyond the silver-only foreign MRE. Hole SFD024 returned 10.7m @ 3.3% zinc (Zn) from 122.3m, including 1.7m at 19.8% Zn, 1.0% lead, and 0.3g/t gold.
Black Bear plans to commence check analyses as part of resource validation to determine whether historic analytical methods may be underrepresenting silver grades, with results expected within four to six weeks.
The company will undertake limited infill drilling to validate the foreign MRE with a view to completing a maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate and progressing the Rapid Mine Restart Study.
Black Bear Minerals is a North American-focused explorer advancing the Shafter silver project in Texas alongside the Independence gold project in Nevada and a portfolio of lithium projects in Québec, Canada.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Black Bear Minerals
