Vancouver – An updated resource estimate has been received by Eagle Plains Resources (EPL-V) and OTCBB-listed option partner Shoshone Silver Mining for the Blende silver-lead-zinc project, located about 65 km. northeast of Keno in the central Yukon.
The revised version of the report still utilizes the data and calculations from a 1991 resource estimate by Billiton Metals Canada, now part of BHP Billiton (BHP-N), but brings the estimate up to National Instrument 43-101 compliance.
In being brought up to present standards, the new estimate confirms a combined inferred resource of 19.6 million tonnes grading 3.04% zinc, 2.8% lead and 56 grams silver per tonne from the East and West zones of the deposit. To quantify that resource, it equates to contained metal figures of at least 1.3 billion pounds of zinc, 1.2 billion pounds of lead and 35 million ounces of silver.
The project had previously been viewed as a prospective open pit operation, but the deposit is now being envisioned as a possible underground operation. Underground development would allow mining of a lower tonnage but at higher grade. Revised cut-off grades of blocks in the resource model show an underground inferred resource of 4.1 million tonnes grading 4.6% zinc, 6.7% lead and 105 grams silver. The deposit remains open westwards, along strike and down-dip.
The Blende project is a carbonate-hosted silver-lead-zinc deposit occurring in dolomites. Mineralization is evident along a six kilometre long by up to 200-metre wide shear zone and forms the matrix in a series of parallel breccia zones. The principal minerals are sphalerite, galena, pyrite, minor chalcopyrite and tetrahedrite.
Previous work on the project, since the mid-1970s, have totaled about $4.2 million and include extensive mapping, geochemical sampling and well in excess of 16,000 metres of drilling.
Shoshone is earning a 60% interest in Eagle Plains’ project by incurring US$5 million in exploration expenditures and issuing one million shares by the end of 2008. There is a 1% NSR on the deposit.
As of the latest figures, Eagle Plains reports 36.3 million shares outstanding with trading in the issue recently having risen to the 60 per share level. Much of the market attention Eagle Plains has been garnering has been from its Copper Canyon project in northwestern British Columbia, which is adjacent to the advanced-stage Galore Creek project and under option to NovaGold Resources (NV-T) who can earn up to an 80% interest.
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