Sunstone Metals Ltd (ASX:STM) has leveraged surface rock chip and channel sampling at the El Palmer Project in northern Ecuador to delineate an extensive new gold-silver opportunity.
Along structural strike from the T1 porphyry gold-copper deposit at El Palmar, the target was identified with surface sample results of up to 6.2 g/t gold and 269 g/t silver from an epithermal vein zone.
Combining information from multiple datasets, Sunstone believes the epithermal vein target stretches over an extensive 600-metre by 400-metre structurally controlled zone.
"Immense upside"
“This is a highly promising result with immense upside,” Sunstone Metals managing director Malcolm Norris said.
“These results demonstrate high grades and significant scale. We will now move quickly to prepare it for drilling in the new year.”
Consistent with Verde Chico
The newly discovered epithermal vein zone at El Palmar closely resembles a belt of high-grade gold occurrences identified from El Palmar to Sunstone’s Verde Chico Project, 4 kilometres to the southwest.
The company is now beginning exploration at Verde Chico to identify extensions to these previously discovered gold veins, encouraged by this most recent discovery and historical results of 24 metres at 21.1 g/t gold.
Sunstone holds some 3,600 hectares across the El Palmar and Verde Chico concessions, an area the company considers highly prospective for both porphyry gold-copper and epithermal gold targets.