Silver Predator’s Taylor project doesn’t disappoint

Results from the first fourteen of twenty-five drill holes from its 2012 exploration program at its flagship Taylor project in Nevada sent shares of Silver Predator (SPD-T) up 35% to 25¢ a share on 7,300 shares traded. 

Significant mineralization was encountered in twelve of the fourteen angled reverse circulation holes including 9.1 metres of 222.5 grams silver per tonne from a depth of 45.7 metres in hole 12-37; 45.7 metres of 108.7 grams silver per tonne from surface in hole 12-40; and 4.6 metres of 767.7 grams silver from a depth of 102.1 metres in hole 12-48. Two other holes, 12-047 and12-049, in the south Taylor shaft area identified lower grade intervals that the company says demonstrate the presence of significant silver mineralization within the Argus Fault Zone to the south.

Silver Predator drilled a total of 1,959 metres to infill and expand the existing open-pit resource and to test extensions of higher grade veins typical of historic underground production at the Taylor mine. The company believes the project in White Pine County could be a near-term producer as a 1,200-tonne-per-day flotation mill that operated as recently as 1991, is still largely intact.  

A portion of the silver mineralization within the known resource has been pre-stripped and is exposed at surface. The project also comes with water rights and roughly 1,578 hectares of mining claims near Ely, Nevada.

The Taylor deposit is an epithermal, low-to-high silica, largely oxidized, low-sulfide replacement deposit hosted by folded and faulted Devonian carbonate rocks of the Pilot Shale, Guilmette, and Joana Formations intruded by Tertiary rhyolite dikes and sills.

A 2010 resource estimate put measured resources at 1.12 million tonnes grading 85.71 grams silver and indicated resources of 4.71 million tonnes averaging 77.83 grams silver, for a combined total of 14.9 million ounces of silver. Inferred resources add another 687,000 tonnes grading 87.1 grams silver for 1.9 million ounces of contained silver. The resource estimate used a cut-off grade of 41.1 grams silver per tonne.

Since the estimate was released, Silver Predator has completed an additional 88 holes, which the company plans to use along with surface and sub-surface geologic mapping to create a new model for updating the resource and mine plan before the end of this year. 

Silver Predator is conducting a detailed surface mapping program. Over the last month initial mapping has focused on the historic open pits and other exposures around the much older underground workings, as the company delineates controls to known mineralization.