Mining

Mamba Exploration finds massive sulphide zones in drilling at Black Hills target

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Mamba Exploration ASX M24 massive semi massive sulphide mineralisation Black Hills first drill hole

The first hole of Mamba’s diamond drilling program at the Black Hills target has intersected 5.55m of sulphide mineralisation.

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Mamba Exploration (ASX: M24) has discovered massive and semi-massive sulphide mineralisation in the first hole of a diamond drilling program at the priority Black Hills target within the Darling Range project in Western Australia.

Drilling intersected 5.55 metres of sulphide mineralisation from 129.45m and included 1.15m of massive sulphides, 1.90m of semi massive sulphides and 2.5m of disseminated sulphides (+5% sulphide).

Visual logging has been completed and mineralisation identified within a broader zone of disseminated sulphides at the depth of the modelled fixed-loop surface electromagnetic (EM) conductor.

The sulphides are believed to be dominated by fine-grained pyrrhotite (80%) and pyrite (20%).

Sulphide zone conductor

Mamba managing director Mike Dunbar said it has become apparent that the sulphide zone is the conductor, given the correlation between the massive sulphides and the EM conductor.

“This is encouraging as it shows that the exploration techniques being used have identified the zone of interest,” he said.

“We have planned a downhole EM survey which is expected to better resolve the orientation and size of the conductor and identify if there are other off-hole conductors which are yet to be tested.”

Diamond core has been processed and cut and samples have been sent for analysis, with results expected within the month.

Diamond drilling is continuing with two more EM conductors yet to be tested.

The second hole is currently at a depth of 100m.

What lies beneath

Mr Dunbar said the company is working hard to understand what lies beneath the surface at Black Hills.

“While intersecting this amount of sulphides is clearly a large step forward for us, the significance of the mineralisation and the potential of the system is yet to be fully understood,” he said.

“With samples already submitted to the laboratory for analysis, and the downhole EM planned for this week, we expect the significance will be better understood over the coming months.”

Julimar location

Black Hills is located 30km northeast of Chalice Mining’s (ASX: CHN) Julimar nickel-copper-platinum group elements deposit.

The world-class discovery has a resource of 350 million tonnes grading 0.58% nickel equivalent, or 1.8 grams per tonne palladium equivalent.

It contains 11 million ounces of three elements (palladium, platinum, gold), plus 560,000t nickel, 360,000t copper and 54,000t cobalt.

Within the resource is a higher-grade component of 82Mt grading 1% nickel equivalent or 2.9g/t palladium equivalent, with the mineralisation remaining open.