Elementos Limited (ASX:ELT) (OTCMKTS:ELTLF) (FRA:9EM) has identified a new drill target at its 100%-owned Cleveland Tin Project as surging tin prices make it attractive to resume exploration activities.
The new exploration target is adjacent to the existing geological resource at the project in northwest Tasmania.
Reconnaissance rock chip sampling from the target have assayed up to 0.7% tin, 0.57% copper and 13.4% zinc.
High tin prices
As the tin price jumped to 10‐year highs above US$28,000/tonne in February, the company moved quickly to assess the potential for additional tin resources at Cleveland.
This comes as Elementos also continues with a major drilling campaign at its flagship Oropesa Tin Project in Spain.
“Resource may extend to north”
Elementos chairman Andy Greig said: “There was a set of historic anomalies to the immediate northeast of the old Cleveland Mine and our existing geological resource which we have been eager to investigate for potential tin mineralisation.
“The prospective region contains the geological mine sequence and has a strike extent of approximately 500 metres, which is only marginally less than the strike extent of the historical Cleveland ore body.
“This means that we are targeting an area where the existing Cleveland resource may extend to the north.”
Reconnaissance geological confirmation mapping
Greig said initial reconnaissance geological confirmation mapping and rock chip sampling carried out last month had confirmed the prospectivity of the untested anomalies which were first identified by a Self‐Potential (SP) geophysical survey in 1954.
He said: “Four of the five-rock chip samples that were collected contained visible sulphide mineralisation with the most significant assay being 0.7% tin, 0.57% copper and 13.4% zinc from sample 130403.”
Drill program being prepared
The chairman said the nature of the mineralisation observed during the reconnaissance fieldwork program was similar to that observed during the 2017 Cleveland diamond drilling program which targeted shallow resources above the existing resource, between the known resource and surface.
“The vein style mineralisation that was observed in 2017 occurs in close proximity vertically and laterally to the semi‐massive sulphide ore at Cleveland,” he said.
"A program to drill test the SP anomalies is now being prepared for approval by Mineral Resources Tasmania.”