Black Bear Minerals Intersects High-Grade Silver Outside Shafter Resource

Black Bear Minerals (ASX: BKB) has returned additional high-grade silver results from resource validation and exploration drilling at its Shafter silver project in Texas.

The latest assays include a peak result of 1,333 grams per tonne silver from diamond drilling designed to twin historical holes and test mineralisation around the existing foreign mineral resource estimate (MRE).

All twin holes completed by Black Bear to date have returned higher-grade and thicker mineralised intercepts than the historical holes they were designed to validate.

Black Bear reported that hole SFD022 strongly supports continuity of mineralisation outside the foreign MRE and highlights potential to define further mineralisation through exploration drilling.

The Shafter foreign MRE currently covers silver only, with Black Bear also assessing broader polymetallic potential across gold, zinc, lead, and other metals.

Twin Drilling Results

The best intercept came from hole SFD020, which returned 11.9 metres at 148g/t silver, 0.1% lead and 0.4% zinc from 78.9m, including a higher-grade zone of 0.5m at 1,333g/t silver, 0.6% lead, 1.3% zinc and 0.1g/t gold.

Hole SFD022 returned 3.8m at 171g/t silver, 0.2% lead, 0.6% zinc and 0.1g/t gold from 146.2m including 1.1m at 328g/t silver, 0.3% lead, 0.5% zinc and 0.1g/t gold.

Hole SFD023 intersected 2.8m at 116g/t silver from 106.9m to bottom-of-hole, including 0.5m at 444g/t silver, 2.6% lead, 0.1% zinc and 0.1g/t gold.

Black Bear drilled SFD020 and SFD022 as twin holes to validate historical drilling completed by AMAX in the 1940s and Gold Fields in the 1980s.

SFD020 twinned historic hole SD183, which returned 5.8m at 109g/t silver from 83.8m, while SFD022 twinned AMAX1261, an underground hole that returned 0.9m at 157g/t Ag from 16.5m.

Restart Study Advances

Shafter hosts a foreign estimate of 17.57 million ounces at 289g/t Ag, although Black Bear is still completing validation and technical work to assess whether it can be converted into a JORC-compliant MRE.

The company is also re-logging and sampling available historic core to better understand the distribution of other significant commodities across Shafter.

Systematic sampling of historic mine workings at the former Presidio mine is planned to assess material left in drift and stope walls after previous selective mining above 500g/t silver.

The work forms part of Black Bear’s broader Rapid Mine Restart Study, which is focused on leveraging Shafter’s existing infrastructure including a permitted Merrill-Crowe processing plant, refinery, power, water rights, and more than 160 kilometres of historical underground workings.