Rapid Critical Metals (ASX:RCM) has intersected ‘ultra-high-grade’ silver at its 100%-owned Webbs Silver Project in northern New South Wales, extending mineralisation beyond the resource outline at both ends.
Drilling at hole WSRC0033 returned 4m @ 2,089 grams per tonne silver (Ag), or 2,334g/t silver equivalent (AgEq), from 24m.
The interval includes 2m @ 3,950g/t Ag and a single metre grading 6,060g/t Ag — the ‘highest’ silver grade in the company’s drilling to date. The 4m intercept is more than 2.5 times the historical mined grade of 23 ounces per tonne.
Notably, the intercepts are polymetallic, with WSRC0033 also returning 0.83% copper, 4.27% lead, and 1.94% zinc.
The company also reported significant widths: hole WSRC0019 returned 53m @ 147g/t Ag (217g/t AgEq) from 127m, including 18m @ 390g/t Ag. Meanwhile, hole WSRC0028 returned 8m @ 424g/t Ag (581g/t AgEq) from 74m, and WSRC0041 returned 8m @ 382g/t Ag (522g/t AgEq) from 70m.
Across the program, 10 single-metre samples from six holes have returned more than 1,000g/t AgEq.
Mineralisation now extends 300m south and 117m north of the resource outline, with both extensions remaining open. The northern extension in hole WSRC0032 returned 5m @ 237g/t Ag (326g/t AgEq) from 93m.
All widths are downhole, with true width estimated at about 60% of downhole width.
Managing Director Byron Miles says the results confirm the system’s scale.
“Add 53m at 217g/t silver equivalent in WSRC0019, and we have high-grade, close to surface, with width — that is what we have been drilling for,” Miles states.
“This is shaping up as a silver district, not just a deposit.”
The company is adding a fourth drill rig, bringing the program to two rigs each at Webbs and Webbs Consol.
Soil sampling has identified a new 600m untested structure to the northwest and a new target at the Stormer prospect, where a 650m drill program is under application.
Rapid is approaching the 15,000m of drilling previously approved and is preparing further applications.
Rapid Critical Metals is an Australian explorer advancing silver projects in New South Wales and British Columbia, Canada, alongside a gallium-germanium asset.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Rapid Critical Metals
