Aeris Resources Ltd has updated the mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the high-grade Jaguar deposit within its 100%-owned Jaguar Operations in Western Australia to 840,000 tonnes at 2.28% copper, 4.66% zinc and 61 g/t silver.
The resource contains 19,000 tonnes of copper metal, 39,000 tonnes of zinc metal and 1.65 million ounces of silver metal with an impressive 88% in the measured and indicated categories.
It comprises high-grade remnant sills and pillars within the old mining areas and additional mineralisation beyond this.
These areas are being assessed for geotechnical stability and mining accessibility and are considered to have reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction by selective underground mining methods.
Jaguar Operations tenement package.
Potential to increase MRE
There is significant potential to increase the resource at the Jaguar Operations, which is 65 kilometres north of Leonora in the Eastern Goldfields, through additional drilling, most notably down-plunge from the current MRE.
In addition, there is potential to define mineralisation along two parallel favourable stratigraphic horizons, one of which contains the mined ‘Farside’ copper sulphide lens.
Aeris’ executive chairman Andre Labuschagne said, “The Jaguar deposit is well understood from previous mining activities.
“The Jaguar mine is currently being de-watered and we expect to be able to access by the end of the calendar year, at which time we will be able to assess the extent of any rehabilitation work required.
“We believe there is significant potential to grow the resource with further drilling.”
About Jaguar package
The Jaguar Operations tenement package is highly prospective for polymetallic volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) deposits containing zinc, copper, gold and silver.
To date, four significant deposits have been discovered within the Jaguar tenement package - Teutonic Bore, Jaguar, Bentley (including Turbo) and Triumph.
Jaguar regional geology.
The Jaguar deposit was discovered in 2002 and was brought into production as an underground mine in 2007 by Jabiru Metals Ltd (JML). JML was subsequently acquired by Independence Group NL (IGO) in 2011.
Bentley deposit was discovered in 2008 and commissioned in 2011 and gradually displaced the Jaguar Mine mineralisation in the Jaguar Operations mineral processing facility. The Jaguar Mine was eventually decommissioned in February 2014.
MRE calculations
The MRE has been estimated based on 458 historic underground diamond drill holes from the database built by JML and IGO during the resource definition and grade control drilling of the deposit.
The database underwent a thorough audit by Aeris before being accepted as input to this MRE update. Most surface holes, all underground face samples and probing sludge holes were excluded from the MRE due to uncertainty in their locational accuracy, assay QA/QC and/or sample quality.
There are no recent metallurgical studies for Jaguar but the area was previously mined and is considered consistent with current mining at Bentley that achieves 80-90% recovery for copper and zinc.