Silver Swan Group (ASX: SWN) is a polymetallic explorer with tenements in the Murchison District of the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. The company's current focus is on lode-gold, syn-tectonic copper-gold and volcanogenic massive sulphide (Cu-Zn-Ag-Au) mineralisation in Archaean terranes. Exploration tenements held by Silver Swan in the Murchison District cover 680 square kilometres.
Silver Swan Group: gold exploration at Stakewell and exploring for VMS deposits at Quinns
With $5.9m in the kitty, Silver Swan Group is well funded to drill and follow up oxide gold mineralisation intersected at Stakewell project, while reverse circulation and diamond drilling will test DHEM and FLEM conductors at the Flinders and Murchison Wonder prospects.
Silver Swan Group (ASX:SWN) has a busy quarter in store after wrapping up a $5 million capital raising in the September quarter.
Stakewell Gold Project
Encouraging oxide gold mineralisation was intersected during the September quarter at the Stakewell gold project, located 50 kilometres south of Meekatharra along the Great Northern Highway in Western Australia.
The search is on for high-grade and oxide lode gold at Stakewell for Silver Swan's Susan Vearncombe. Silver Swan has drilled 11 reverse circulation holes for a total of 878 metres to follow up on high-grade gold intersections at the historic Kohinoor open-pit and underground gold mine.
Previously released intersections from Stakewell have included: 10 metres at 3.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 259 metres and 8 metres at 5.7g/t gold from 22 metres.
It has commenced drill-testing the first of four oxide targets to the east of the Kohinoor open-pit.
Near-surface oxide gold targets are associated with northwest-southeast trending quartz veins in fault arrays within amphibolite host rocks.
Four potential oxide gold targets have been identified; the first oxide target has been drilled successfully and drilling continues.
Quinns VMS project
Quinns is located 55 kilometres south of Meekatharra covering a tenement area of 45 square kilometres, where Silver Swan discovered the Austin volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit in the Quinns project area and subsequently defined a Resource of 1.48 million tonnes at 1.02% copper, 10.39% zinc, 0.24g/t silver and 3.31g/t gold.
There is a very large 25 kilometres of strike with potential for VMS mineralisation at two stratigraphic levels. Investors may recall that VMS deposits will often vary in size, are generally high grade and are mostly found in clusters within regions.
The style of the Austin VMS discovery at Quinns and the highly favourable rock chemistry across the greater Quinns region would provide managing director Susan Vearncombe with plenty of encouragement for the company’s search for additional VMS deposits within its highly prospective landholding in the region to unearth further discoveries.
In the December quarter, Silver Swan will revisit the Austin deposit to determine the potential for stacked sulphide lenses to the east and west of the current massive sulphide mineralisation and potential for enlargement of the orebody in terms of both width and depth.
Flinders and Murchison Wonder Prospects, Quinns VMS Project
The Flinders prospect is located in the northern part of the Quinns VMS Project area. This is a lateral position to the Tasman prospect, where drilling intersected 6.0 metres at 3.0% zinc.
The Flinders prospect has a surface expression with a large (100 metres x 30 metres) gossanous and ferruginous outcrop known as the Flinders Gossan and structural elements indicating a plunge shallowly to the west.
During the September quarter, Silver Swan drilled one diamond and one reverse circulation hole into the Flinders area and followed up with fixed loop and downhole electromagnetics.
These surveys resulted in the identification of a series of strong linking conductor plates over 500 metres of strike, along with 30 metres of intense alteration and a 12 metre wide zone of sulphide mineralisation in 11FLD001. An additional conductor was located a further kilometre to the southeast.
Six reverse circulation pre-collar drillholes have been completed and diamond drilling is in progress to extend these holes at depth through the electromagnetic targets.
A fixed loop electromagnetic survey at the Murchison Wonder prospect returned a strong conductor plate dipping south and plunging east. An initial reverse circulation hole has returned 1 metre at 5.3% zinc, 9g/t silver, 0.2% copper, 1 metre at 2.7% zinc, 6g/t silver and 1 metre at 0.7% zinc and 4g/t gold from 131 metres.
Three reverse circulation holes and one reverse circulation pre-collar have been drilled at Murchison Wonder. The precollar hole will be completed with a diamond ‘tail’ during the next quarter as part of the current drilling program.
Results of the other reverse circulation holes are awaited.
