Silver Lake Resources discovers potential fifth underground gold mine at Murchison

Silver Lake Resources (ASX: SLR) has identified the potential for a fifth underground mine in Western Australia’s Murchison region following the results from drilling at the Comet Gold Project.

Deeper drilling at the Pinnacles deposit within Comet has been targeting strike and depth extensions below the planned open pit, with mineralisation remaining open along strike and at depth.

Assays from a recent four hole reverse circulation drilling program at Comet include:

- 9 metres at 6 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 193 metres;
- 12 metres at 3.3g/t gold from 145 metres; and
- 3 metres at 12.8g/t gold from 84 metres.

The next phase of the program will include infill and extensional drilling.

The deeper deposit at Pinnacles can be accessed from the planned Comet decline development. Mineralisation remains open along strike and at depth.

Tuckabianna extensional drilling

In other company news, extensional drilling at Silver Lake’s Tuckabianna Project, also in the Murchison region, has intercepted mineralisation outside the current resource.

A six hole reverse circulation drilling program at the Tuckabianna West deposit has extended the strike by 250 metres to the north outside the current mine plan.

Results from the drilling program include:

- 3.8 metres at 14.2g/t gold from 340 metres;
- 6.8 metres at 3.2g/t gold from 385 metres; and
- 3 metres at 6.2g/t gold from 167 metres.

Drilling to extend the strike and depth of the resource at Tuckabianna West is ongoing.

Murchison operations

Silver Lake is developing a second gold mining operation in the Murchison region, with multiple mines to feed a central processing facility.

The Murchison Project comprises the Comet, Tuckabianna and Moyagee projects and has a JORC resource of 18.4 million tonnes at a grade of 2.8g/t, for a total 1.7 million ounces of gold.

The company plans to source ore from 14 open pit and four underground mines.

All of the planned open pit ore sources have been drilled out, with Silver Lake now focused on extending resources, particularly below 100 metres depth at the underground mine level.

Mining at the Pinnacles deposit in Comet is expected to begin in the September quarter of 2012 in preparation for mill feed.

Gold production is targeted for the March quarter of 2013, ramping up to 100,000 ounces per annum in 2014.

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/23834/silver-lake-resources-discovers-potential-fifth-underground-gold-mine-at-murchison-23834.html