Assay And Drill Results Expected For The Blue Moon Project

VANCOUVER - Blue Moon Mining reported that the Blue Moon project, in Mariposa County, California, was originally mined for Zinc by Hecla during the Second World War. The grades were strong. An estimated 56,000 tonnes were mined at 12.3% Zinc. Since then, however, despite promising exploration results the project has lain dormant. In May 2017, Patrick McGrath became the CEO of Blue Moon Mining with a new strategy in mind.

"The project had been sitting on the shelf for over thirty years," he says. "I wanted to take the project in a different direction. After review, we felt the best avenue was to make it bigger and better. To add tonnes and to add high grade tonnes."

The last resource estimate, which was released in 2017, registered 7.8 million tonnes in the inferred category containing 771 million pounds of Zinc, 71 million pounds of copper, 300,000 ounces of gold and 10 million ounces of silver. In 2018 and 2019 a drilling campaign produced core samples that included 30 feet of 30.3% Zinc and 25 feet of 25.6% Zinc. McGrath is in little doubt that the true reserves could be far larger.

"One of the characteristics of volcanic massive sulfide (VMS) projects such as ours is that they're often found in pods or clusters," he says. "You find one, you often find another."

McGrath's team looked at the project's historical reports, electromagnetic and downhole surveys and found a conductor lying parallel to the Blue Moon deposit. That's what they targeted with hole BM-83. The core samples showed around 100 feet of semi and massive sulfide materials. At the end of 2021 that core was undergoing lab tests to establish the grades of mineralization.

"If it turns out to be of economic grade, then we have a whole new deposit, given that VMS deposits are often found in clusters, there's a high probability of more of them on strike," says McGrath. "If we get multiple deposits on strike and we start to boost our resource toward 12 or even 15 million tonnes, that's a figure many mid-tier producers would be interested in."

Further assay and drill results are expected in early 2022 with further drilling and a resource update penciled in for before the end of year. Metallurgical testing will follow, but the findings of the project's previous owners bodes well in this regard. In 1988 Lakefield Research estimated indicated recovery rates of 95% for Zinc, 93% for copper and 70% for gold.