WCE identifies new high priority drill target at the Elizabeth Hill Silver mine

Our silver exploration Investment West Coast Silver (ASX: WCE) just identified a new high-priority drill target at its Elizabeth Hill silver project in WA.

The target came out of the first Down Hole Electromagnetic (DHEM) survey WCE has ever run at Elizabeth Hill - and it's thrown up a conductor that has never been drill tested before.

It sits just 50 metres east of the old Elizabeth Hill mine and around 110m below surface:

(source)

AND there is an old hole ~25m away that hit 2m at 42g/t silver - the target itself, as mentioned earlier has never been drilled.

(source)

WCE is currently in the middle of a drill program with two rigs:

• 4,000m of RC drilling - testing extensions to the north of the old workings, AND
• 1,500m of diamond drilling - testing extensions at depth to the old workings.

And after today, WCE said it would move its diamond rig to test that new anomaly, with drilling expected to be wrapped up in the coming week.

(source)

Just to recap Elizabeth Hill - this is the mine that produced ~1.2M ounces of silver at an average grade of ~2,194g/t from just 16,830 tonnes of ore.

The mine shut in 2000 because silver was sitting at US$5/oz. Today silver is trading around US$80/oz.

For anyone who has ever been to the Perth Mint - the glorious giant silver nugget in the museum section was also found at Elizabeth Hill.

We are Invested in WCE to see it:

1. Drill out and identify silver resources in and around the existing Elizabeth Hill workings.
2. Drill out regional targets (and hopefully discover an Elizabeth Hill repeat).

Today's announcement goes straight to target #1 - but via a slightly different route than straight up RC/DD grid drilling.

By using DHEM, WCE has been able to "see" a conductive body sitting off to the side of the old mine, on the same granite-ultramafic contact that hosts the high grade silver mineralisation at Elizabeth Hill.

The single planned hole from an existing drill pad will aim to intersect the modelled plate at roughly 150-170m downhole depth.

Importantly, WCE is careful to note that geophysics on its own doesn't tell you what the conductor actually is - the drill bit is the only way to find that out. There is a chance the conductor reflects something other than silver mineralisation. But the combination of:

• Conductance values consistent with the silver target,
• Location on the same geological contact as known mineralisation, and
• Alignment with a historic intercept (AG54 - 2m at 42g/t Ag),

What's next for WCE?

In early April, WCE released an updated presentation here.

It’s always good to see a Gantt chart showing what’s ahead in these presentations - a one pager on what to expect next.

(source)

The three things we are most looking out for are:

1. The RC drill campaign on the targets to the north of the Elizabeth Hill Mine (happening now).
2. The diamond drilling going for at depth extensions to the Elizabeth Hill mine (started today).
3. Geophysics across the broader project area

And then all of that data rolling into a JORC resource and scoping study before the end of the year.