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Alicanto Minerals drilling strategy confirms high grade copper, gold and silver at Greater Falun

Last updated: 15:39 30 Apr 2021 AEST, First published: 15:28 30 Apr 2021 AEST

Alicanto Minerals - Alicanto Minerals drilling strategy confirms high grade copper, gold and silver at Greater Falun
The company expects to begin drilling at the Sala Silver Project in the coming quarter.

Alicanto Minerals Ltd’s (ASX:AQI) exploration strategy is paying off at its Greater Falun Project in Sweden, with its 4,000-metre drilling campaign revealing high-grade copper, gold and silver from never before drilled targets.

March quarter results from holes drilled at the Swamp Thing and Heden prospects, which sit within 15 kilometres of the world-class Falun copper-gold mine that closed in 1992, support the company’s belief that Greater Falun is a Skarn system, not Volcanogenic Massive Sulphides (VMS).

The company plans to undertake more exploration work in the near-term over the project as well as the nearby Sala Silver Project.

Swamp Thing skarn mineralisation

Holes at Swamp Thing during the quarter intersected a mineralised zone with copper-gold skarn in the contact between limestone and an intruding apophyse of a feldspar porphyry, showing what the potential target mineralisation could look like within this environment. 

Assay results from 58.30-58.62 metres returned 3.25% copper, 1.36 g/t gold, 31 g/t silver and elevated bismuth at 55 parts per million.

Commonly in the Bergslagen region, limestone-skarn hosted (distal) massive sulphide deposits show a strong asymmetry in footwall versus hanging wall alteration of the volcanic stratigraphy. 

The company’s drilling program has delineated multiple outcropping granitic intrusions or ‘heat engines’ which are believed to be the drivers of the proximal skarn mineralisation.

Notably, the structural folding of the newly defined stratigraphic sequence has created ‘bonanza’ style widths at Falun, with the potential also seen in most recent drilling and field mapping within the Greater Falun project.

Heden target 

The Heden area is interpreted to constitute a semi-regional to regional limestone unit with intense and extensive footwall alteration and covered by a quartz-phyric pyroclastic rhyolite sequence.

Central Heden is dominated by Fe-skarn while the East Heden shows pale green Mg-skarn associated with copper-silver-(gold-bismuth) mineralisation. 

Drilling returned assay results from 71.44-72.46 metres of 3.04% copper, 0.1 g/t gold and 37 g/t silver and had strongly elevated bismuth (240 parts per million).

The skarn model.

Wolf Mountain prospect

Distal copper-gold skarn mineralisation was drilled at the Wolf Mt prospect during early 2020 and similar alteration styles have been intersected in recent drilling targeting IP anomalies to the west and south of the prospect. 

The intersected IP anomalies, together with the previously drilled Wolf Mountain copper prospect, are interpreted to be caused by the distal parts of a large hydrothermal alteration system at play. 

At the IPC anomaly, a drill hole intersecting intense biotite-amphibole-garnet alteration assayed 0.21 g/t gold from 23.80-24.83 metres, indicating the fluid’s pathway. 

This is similar to the nature of the deeper footwall at the limestone-hosted high-grade copper-gold-zinc-lead-silver Lustebo deposit in the North East. 

Ongoing exploration

Structurally the Greater Falun area is quite complex, and the company plans to undertake more exploration work in the near term. 

The Swamp Thing project constitutes the best example encountered so far of intrusion-proximal limestone-skarn hosted setting of a copper-gold skarn within the Greater Falun Project. 

Further work is being planned and a new 20,000 metres drilling campaign is underway with two diamond drill rigs in action and a third being mobilised to the Sala Silver Project.

Sala Silver Project drilling plans

Sala is 100 kilometres from Greater Falun and was once Europe's largest silver producer.

Four holes drilled in November 2012 suggest the Sala mineralisation remains open at depth and along strike having intersected high-grade mineralisation including 0.67 metres at 844 g/t silver and 16.3% lead at 250 metres below surface. 

Notably, historical and further drilling (300 metres to the southwest of Sala) at the Prince lode has highlighted a very promising high-grade mineralisation including 37.2 metres at 50 g/t silver and 6.1% zinc.

Alicanto intends to begin drilling at Sala as soon as drilling permits have been approved as part of its process to independently verify the above results.

Map of the Falun Project (AQI 100%) - showing current drill targets in yellow dots, the recently acquired Sala Silver Project (AQI 100%) and the Garpenberg Mine (owned and operated by Boliden). 

Guyana gold projects

In addition to the exploration projects in Sweden, the company holds a portfolio of gold projects in Guyana, South America, including the Arakaka Project and the Ianna Gold Project.

Arakaka lies in a world-class gold mining province that also hosts projects such as Las Christinas/Las Brisas (27 million ounces), Aurora (6.5 million ounces) and Gros Rosebel (13.7 million ounces).

Alicanto is continuing to review value add opportunities as it looks forward to progressing the project.

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