A recent geophysical survey at the Wilga Downs joint venture project of Silver City Minerals and Thomson Resources in western New South Wales has defined an electromagnetic (EM) conductor which provides an excellent drill target. Silver City intends to commence drilling the target within the next two weeks.

The geophysical response and results from previous drill holes suggest the target is sulphide rich at depths of approximately 200-250 metres below surface.

The character of the conductor shows strong similarities to those that led to the discoveries of the nearby Tritton and Mallee Bull copper-gold deposits.

The Tritton deposit is a more than 20 million tonne copper dominant ore deposit which was first mined in 2004 and reached 10 years of production last year.

Mallee Bull is a more recent discovery and is one of Australia’s highest grade copper discoveries in the past decade.

In August Silver City announced that it had signed a joint venture with Thomson with respect to the Wilga Downs project, which is about 80km north of Cobar, a town synonymous with the mining of copper, copper-gold and base metal deposits.

In order to follow-up on work undertaken by Thomson, Silver City completed high resolution moving loop and fixed loop EM (MLEM and FLEM) surveys. The results of this work outline a late-time conductor east of two historic drill holes. These holes, which were drilled in 1971 and 1978, recorded broad intersections of anomalous copper, zinc and lead mineralisation.

Work by both Thomson and Silver City suggest that these holes have not been drilled to sufficient depth to test the EM anomaly. The new work by Silver City also indicates that the highest conductivities in the data lie almost 200 metres to the east of one hole.

The new target lies within a strong magnetic and gravity anomaly, and coincides with high induced polarisation chargeabilities.

Silver City Minerals is a base and precious metals explorer with a strong focus on the historic mining centre of Broken Hill in the far west of NSW.