Breakthrough Discovery Reported by Sterling Metals at Sail Pond Project
Sterling Metals Corp. (CA:SAG – $0.28 & US:SAGGF – $0.22 & GER:LACB – €0.17) correctly gauged that an underexplored district in the Province of Newfoundland represented an opportunity to participate in the ongoing bull market now underway for silver, gold and copper. The Company committed to an option deal with Altius Minerals Corporation to acquire the large, early stage Sail Pond property in an agreement.
Based on promising indications, generated through early stage sampling and prospecting work, Sterling anticipated that a significant deposit area would be awaiting discovery on this property. As a result, the Company launched its maiden drilling program on Sail Pond in June.
This week the Company was able to report the first batch of assay results from that drilling work. It appears that the Company is well on the way towards outlining a mineral deposit at Sail Pond. Wide intervals of promising alteration have been observed in drill core. Metallic mineralization including galena (lead-silver), chalcopyrite (copper), sphalerite (zinc-silver), tetrahedrite-tennantite (silver) and pyrite were identified.
Three of the mineralized zones encountered in this work extended to lengths of more than 10 meters. Within wider intervals, several high-grade sections were reported above 1000 g/t AgEQ. This combination of broad mineralized intervals and localized high-grade enrichment represents a very promising start to the exploration at Sail Pond.
Multiple Bands of Mineralization Encountered
Assay results have now been presented for nine of the drill holes of the program. Right off the bat, initial drilling work has confirmed the early promise of the surface fieldwork and sampling programs. Polymetallic mineralization with attractive grades has been encountered near surface at Sail Pond. While the silver content is highlighted in terms of the value of the overall resource, the mineralized sections also contained varying levels of gold, copper, lead, zinc and antimony.
Multiple bands of mineralization were encountered in many of the drill holes. The best results of this round were encountered in drill hole SP21-018. One section of 0.40m contained the highest grade interval of the program so far, with an average of 1854.02g/t AgEq. This was observed at a depth nearly 115m down hole. Another very high grade interval was a narrow section of a quarter meter of drill core with an average grade of 1096.59g/t AgEq, encountered within a wider interval of 11.1m starting almost from surface.
In contrast, SP21-008 featured the deepest mineralized section of drill core of the program and was also very high grade. A half meter interval with an average of 1039.63g/t AgEq was reported extending below a depth of 175 meters. However, most of the intervals from this batch came within the first 100 meters of drill core.
Attractive Early Stage Results Justify Expansion of Phase 2 Drilling
Prior to launching the drilling work, fieldwork and preliminary exploration including soil sampling, trenching and prospecting work identified near surface regional targets. This work highlighted a corridor of attractive alteration within the property. A total strike length extending 12km was outlined including a cluster of high grade sample results dubbed the South Zone. A larger section of sample data was also outlined to establish the North Zone target area. Interpretation of geophysical surveys indicated structural targets further to depth.
Phase 1 targets were selected on the basis of soil and grab sample results. Quartz veining and associated alteration of adjacent host rock represented promising target structures for further investigation. The drilling confirmed several wide intervals of this mineralization, including combined brecciation and veining. Assay results are still pending for 232 samples extracted from eight of the drill holes in Phase 1.
Phase 2 work is focused entirely within the South Zone area. This target area spans a strike length of roughly half a kilometer. So far, only samples from SP21-018 have been assayed from this phase. The very high grade intervals of this drill hole certainly build expectations for the remaining assay results still pending.
With the successful confirmation of the early sampling results now in hand, Sterling has opted to increase the scale of the work program. The Company announced that it will expand on the total drilling commitment from 7500m as originally planned, to at least 8500m of drilling. This objective will increase the number of planned drill holes from 37 to between 42 and 45.
Conclusion
The early phases of drilling work at Sail Pond are intended to investigate the near surface resource potential. Relatively shallow drilling is ideal for a grass-roots project covering a large expanse of property area with limited historical exploration data available. The promising start to this exploration effort is highlighted by the fact that multiple layers of polymetallic mineralization have been confirmed at various depths in the drill core. Given that this is the maiden drilling effort for the Company, the first batch of assays provides a glimpse of the potential with some extremely high grade results.
Sterling is proceeding with a systematic effort. As the remainder of Phase 2 is completed and the assay results are gradually reported the Company will be able to focus on initial discovery zones and plan to follow up with another program that may extend to deeper targets.
With the ongoing exploration work in progress, Sterling has already spent more than the $2 million commitment under the terms of the option deal with Altius. Therefore the Company has now secured 100% ownership of the Sail Pond project.
As a result, Sterling now owns a large property in a highly prospective district, with encouraging results in hand from the early stages of exploration work. Exploration drilling has been expanded to include several more drill holes. This is an ideal scenario for an emerging junior explorer. As the scope of the drilling work has been increased, speculators may anticipate additional positive results to be reported in the months ahead. Smallcaps Recommendation: BUY.
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