Emu NL might be on the cusp of an exciting new gold-silver discovery at its Vidalita project, within the strongly mineralised Maricunga precious metal belt, in the Atacama region of northern Chile.
The 2018 drilling campaign has now concluded for the Chilean winter and the company is now busy interpreting the down-hole geology from its drill core which management says has all the right hallmarks of a classic, high-sulphidation epithermal gold system.
A significant number of samples are being processed for multi-element geochemical assaying, with results expected by the end of the June quarter.
The Vidalita project envelops a highly prospective, sulphidic epithermal precious metal ore system, where surface sampling by Emu returned rock chip results up to 15.6g/t gold and 594g/t silver.
The company reports that its drilling program has intersected visible sulphide mineralisation at depth, beneath highly anomalous surface rock chips and surface geochemistry.
Geological logging also identified wide intervals of rock types, textures and alteration that the company says could possibly represent the top of the deeper, high value epithermal system that it has been relentlessly pursuing.
Emu is in exceptional company in the Maricunga and adjacent El Indio mineralised belt, with Barrick’s 2015 world-class discovery at Alturas containing a resource of 6.8m ounces of gold and Gold Fields’ 2011 Salares Norte discovery holding 3.66 million ounces of gold and 49.6 million ounces of silver.
Last year the company discovered highly anomalous gold and silver results in soil geochemistry over 8 square kilometres within the Vidalita tenement and the present drilling program tested only 0.5 square kilometres of this anomaly.
All up, Emu has access to about 69 square kilometres of prospective tenure within the region.
Whilst assays from the drilling program are pending, Emu appears confident that it is closing in on a solidly mineralised system at Vidalita.
The company’s Jotahues project is about 10km northwest of Vidalita and has also shown anomalous gold and silver in exploratory rock chip sampling.
Emu has been on a patient journey, developing its Chilean project portfolio over the last 2 years and the recent drilling campaign at Vidalita appears to show that just might be on the right track in Chile.
By Matt Birney
