West Coast Silver (ASX:WCE) has added a new near-mine exploration target directly beside its Elizabeth Hill Silver Project after securing the newly granted Elizabeth Hill West prospecting licence.
The ground sits immediately west of the Elizabeth Hill mining lease and brings a new package of silver, copper, nickel and palladium targets into the company’s exploration pipeline.
Historical trenching returned 5m @ 5.2 g/t Ag, 19,000ppm Cu and 220ppb Pd, while RC drilling returned 1m @ 11 g/t Ag from 65m.
Right next door
Elizabeth Hill West sits within 1km of the historic Elizabeth Hill silver mine and along the contact between the Munni Munni Intrusion and the Cherratta Granitoid Complex.
The area also contains major structures, coherent silver soil anomalism and geological settings that share similarities with those seen at Elizabeth Hill.
That makes it a logical extension of the broader near-mine search.
Figure 1: Plan view of location of the Elizabeth Hill West tenement (P47/2033), immediately west of, and directly bounding, Elizabeth Hill Mining Lease M47/342.
Historical work missed the silver angle
Much of the previous exploration across Elizabeth Hill West was focused on nickel, copper and PGEs.
Silver was often not the primary target, and in several historical drill holes it was not even assayed.
That gives West Coast Silver a simple opportunity.
Go back through the old work with a silver-first lens.
The company now plans to consolidate historical drilling, trenching, geochemistry and geophysics before moving into field validation and target definition.
The target is already showing signs of life
Historical work has already demonstrated that the ground is mineralised.
Alongside the silver hits, trenching also returned strong copper and palladium values, while broader soil programs defined coherent silver anomalies coincident with major structures.
That gives West Coast Silver several vectors to work with before drilling begins.
Building around a proven high-grade mine
Elizabeth Hill itself has a very different pedigree.
Historically, the mine produced 1.2Moz of silver from just 16,830t of ore at a head grade of 2,194 g/t Ag.
The deposit remains open at depth and along strike, while the broader consolidated land package now gives West Coast Silver over 180km² to search for additional Elizabeth Hill-style systems.
Elizabeth Hill West adds another priority target to that search.
What comes next
The next phase is about ranking the best silver targets.
West Coast Silver will first rework the historical datasets, then carry out mapping, surface sampling and targeted geophysics.
If those programs sharpen the picture, the highest-priority targets will move toward first-pass aircore or RC drilling.
The old explorers found mineralisation.
West Coast Silver now gets to ask the question they largely did not. How much silver is actually there?
