Drilling by
In an ongoing campaign, Breakwater has so far completed 13 underground diamond drill holes in the vicinity of Dona Rosa, with eight holes returning ore-grade intersections.
Highlights from drilling into sectors 9N and 10NW include:
- 22.9 metres (from 19 metres) grading 6.84% zinc and 1.93 grams gold per tonne, including 5.7 metres of 14.11% zinc and 0.3 gram gold, in hole 35;
- 16.6 metres (from 22 metres) of 7.31% zinc and 0.2 gram gold, including 6.5 metres of 11.94% zinc and 0.46 gram gold, in hole 38;
- 15.6 metres (from 10 metres) of 6.66% zinc and 0.21 gram gold in hole 39;
- 11.7 metres (from 33 metres) of 10.63% zinc and 1.78 grams gold in hole 44; and
- 15.4 metres (27 metres) of 8.06% zinc and 0.76 gram gold in hole 45.
Once the current drilling phase is completed at Dona Rosa, Breakwater intends to update the deposit’s resource estimate, with results likely to be
released by year-end. Breakwater Chairman Gordon Bub says the additional tonnage from the new area “could be fairly significant.”
At the end of 1999, resources at El Toqui stood at 3.05 million tonnes grading 9.2% zinc and 0.5 gram gold, including reserves of 1.42 million tonnes grading 7.9% zinc and 0.4 gram gold.
Breakwater has also been actively exploring a zinc prospect named Estatuas, situated 3 km west of the Dona Rosa deposit.
Last October, the company carried out a stream-sediment and soil survey over a 60-sq.-km. area, and then sampled five outcrops along a 1.5-km strike length, returning values ranging from 3% to 50% zinc.
In May, Breakwater began a diamond drilling campaign to test these showings at depth. To date, drilling at Estatuas has totalled 851 metres in seven holes on four of the prospective zones.
Hole EST-1 intersected 6.5 metres (from 207 metres) grading 4.4% zinc, including 3.4 metres grading 7% zinc. The company notes that, in the upper 100 metres of the hole, a sedimentary sequence of highly altered rocks contained a 25-metre horizon that correlates to the main stratigraphy of the Dona Rosa deposit. The lower section of this hole is a volcanoclastic altered sequence that hosts Estatuas’ zinc-gold mineralization.
A second hole at Estatuas, EST-06, intersected three mineralized zones between 37 and 63 metres, including 3.5 metres of 7.3% zinc, 3.5 metres of 9.2% zinc, and 5.5 metres of 8.8% zinc.
Breakwater says these occurrences confirm large and continuous zinc mineralization situated stratigraphically below, and 2 km away from, the main Dona Rosa system.
“It’s possible [there’s significant geological continuity between El Toqui and Estatuas], but we won’t really know until we put some drill holes in it, which we eventually will do,” says Bub. “Right now we’re focusing just on Estatuas, because that area would be readily accessible for mining, assuming there’s enough tonnage there.”
Bub notes that several of the surface showings at Estatuas were discovered by former owner
Breakwater is also beginning to explore the Concordia target, situated immediately west of Estatuas. “There’s an outcrop over there that looks interesting, and we’ll eventually drill that too,” says Bub. “But first, we’ll have to do a lot of detailed geochemical surveying — that’s the exploration technique that seems to work best in this area.”
Meanwhile 250 km south of El Toqui in Chile’s southern Aysen region, Breakwater has negotiated an option to acquire a 7,271-ha area known as the Corfo properties, situated adjacent to existing Breakwater exploration ground.
The company recently carried out a 200-sq.-km stream-sediment survey in the area, identifying three base metal anomalies covering 50 sq. km. The survey suggests the existence of a volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit hosted by marbles, schists and pyroclastic rock.
Bub says upcoming activity at Corfo will entail follow-up geochemical work and possibly some drilling by early 2000.
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