ASX listed precious metals explorer Emu NL, is chomping at the bit to finish what it started last exploration season at its Vidalita project in the highly endowed Maricunga Belt in Chile.
After experiencing some technical issues with the drill rig last exploration season, Emu is taking no chances this time around with drill planning now well underway ahead of an expected December kick off.
The field team will look to undertake both shallow and deeper testing of the Vidalita target with maiden drilling programs over the Peon 4, Vidalota D and Jotahues prospects also to get underway.
A total of 10,000 metres of aircore drilling and 3,000 metres of diamond coring is proposed for the upcoming season, with Emu confident that it has the right mix of drill methods in place now to deliver high quality samples at low costs, based on last year’s maiden programs.
The company outlined two styles of mineralisation at Vidalita in drilling earlier this year and says it plans to target both types in the approaching field season.
The first type was a shallow, vuggy silica mantle style of mineralisation that was dominated by silver, but with gold credits to boot.
Emu has determined an Exploration Target of ranging between 5 million and 15 million tonnes grading from 5g/t to 120g/t silver and 0.1g/t to 3g/t gold for this shallower style of mineralisation at Vidalita.
The company is proposing to throw a significant amount of infill aircore drilling at Vidalita this season, saying this drill method produces the highest quality samples in the “honeycombed” rock for both geological logging and assaying needs.
Emu has also delineated a second, deeper style of mineralisation at Vidalita, which has higher grades of gold and silver mineralisation, associated with elevated levels of copper, lead and zinc.
According to the company, this mineralised suite is more in line with the rock chip sampling results returned from surface at Vidalita.
Emu plans to test for this higher grade gold and silver mineralisation with a diamond drilling campaign at Vidalita during this field season.
At Peon 4, the company will target a 600m wide, 1.2km long zone of anomalous geochemical results, which represent high sulphidation epithermal fingerprints elsewhere in the Maricunga Belt.
In May, exploration defined a north-northeast trending mineralised zone of elevated geochemistry open to the north and south and lying on the same trend as Anglo American’s Cacique gold discovery, northeast of Emu’s Jotahues project.
Peon 4 will be initially drill tested with two sections of inclined and overlapping aircore holes to shallow depths.
At Vidalota D, Emu will test anomalous surface gold geochemical targets with two sections of shallow aircore drilling.
At the Jotahues prospect, the company has designed a number of exploratory scout drill holes to test anomalous rock chip geochemistry noted from the area and will provide a deeper sampling profile and important geological information.
Elsewhere, Emu are planning reconnaissance geological mapping and geochemical sampling of the Arroyo Ancho prospect, to test a large epithermal alteration zone identified in that area.
Emu has drill programs planned through until the end of April 2019 now, so expect a flood of news flow out of the ASX listed junior in the coming months.
