Argent Minerals Ltd. IP Survey Confirms Large Copper Gold Target at West Wyalong

Sydney, Australia (ABN Newswire) - Argent Minerals Ltd. (ASX:ARD) is pleased to announce the results of a high resolution ground induced polarisation (IP) survey conducted at the West Wyalong Project in NSW, Australia, a farmin joint venture between Argent Minerals and Golden Cross Operations Pty Ltd in which Argent Minerals has earned a 51% interest, and the right to earn 70% is currently active.


Highlights:

- Ground IP survey confirms a large, broad area of increased chargeability

- The IP chargeability anomaly corresponds closely to the 1.4 km x 0.8 km magnetic low anomaly announced 17 July 2014

- The IP anomaly is also coincident with strong copper and gold geochemistry intersected by historical shallow aircore drilling - anomaly remains untested

- The results indicate a large copper gold target of porphyry/epithermal style mineralisation with potential similarities to nearby world class deposits, including Lake Cowal 37 km to the north

- The West Wyalong copper gold target is now defined - drill test plan to be designed

- Potential additional IP anomaly noted on south east portion of IP survey - follow up required

The results of the IP survey confirm a large, broad area of anomalous increased chargeability that corresponds closely with the 1.4 km by 0.8 km magnetic low anomaly reported on 17 July 2014. The IP chargeability anomaly is also coincident with strong copper and gold geochemistry intersected by historical shallow aircore drilling.

Argent Minerals Managing Director David Busch said, "This development represents another major step forward for the West Wyalong Project. Following analysis performed by geophysicist Steve Collins of ARCTAN Services Pty Ltd, the large combined magnetic and IP feature is considered to be prospective for a porphyry/epithermal copper gold mineralisation system with potential similarities to significant deposits nearby, including the Lake Cowal mine.

"A key result of the IP survey is that the copper gold target positioning information is now of sufficient resolution for Argent to proceed with designing a drill test plan. The Company has decided to progress this as a priority".


About the West Wyalong Location

Located only 7 kilometres from the West Wyalong gold fields that produced 445,700 ounces of gold from 374,111 tonnes of material between 1894 and 1921, the West Wyalong Project is situated in the Macquarie Arc of the Lachlan Orogen, in a geological setting of Ordovician volcanics which hosts world-class porphyry copper-gold mines such as Newcrest's Cadia, China Molybdenum's Northparkes, and 37 kilometres to the north of West Wyalong - the Lake Cowal mine (Cowal).

Cowal was acquired by Evolution Mining Ltd. (ASX:EVN) in July 2015 for $US550 million. Considered by Evolution to be "one of Australia's most attractive gold assets", the December 2014 Cowal Mineral Resource has been estimated at 5.09 million ounces of gold, including an Ore Reserve estimate of 2.18 million ounces of gold.


About the IP Survey

The purpose of the West Wyalong survey was to obtain higher resolution IP data over the area of interest which Argent had previously identified as being potentially prospective for a porphyry copper gold deposit.

The Company had initially identified the potential anomaly in 2013 by reprocessing historical geophysics data that had been obtained from low resolution government magnetic and radiometric surveys.

In 2014 Argent carried out an airborne survey for higher resolution magnetic data, which significantly advanced interpretation of the subsurface geology and defined areas where the magnetic minerals in the host rock may have been altered by hydrothermal processes. The survey successfully identified an area of low magnetic rocks within a belt of predominantly magnetic high response, indicating thermal destruction of magnetism typically associated with volcanic intrusive processes. Several of the mineable porphyry deposits in eastern Australia have a very low IP response, particularly those with gold as a major component.

The August 2015 ground IP survey has confirmed a broad area of anomalism that is coincident with the results from the airborne magnetic survey. The survey has defined a weak but distinct zone of elevated IP chargeability response that corresponds closely to the observed magnetic low.

The results indicate broad, consistent subsurface geology such as a porphyry stock. Coincident potential for magnetite destruction and elevated IP chargeability indicate the possible presence of a sulphide mineralised porphyry stock at depths beyond the historical shallow aircore drill testing.

The combined magnetic and IP feature, together with the presence of high copper values in nearby drill results, is considered to be prospective for porphyry/epithermal style copper gold mineralisation with potential similarities to to significant deposits nearby, including that of the Lake Cowal mine.

The interpreted dimensions of the combined magnetic and IP anomaly are significant, being approximately 1.4 kilometres in the north-south direction, 800 metres from east to west, and extending to depth from approximately 200 metres.


Additional Potential IP Chargeability Anomaly Observed to the South East

The geophysicist has also noted another IP response in the south east corner of the surveyed area, which displays a similar positive chargeability response as the main target area. Argent Minerals is treating the IP results in the southern portion of the surveyed area with caution due to poor weather sustained during data collection in that section. Four receiver stations and respective results were removed from the survey due to erroneous results from excessive standing water (see line 6,239,600N in Figures 3 and 4, in link below), ARCTAN Services Pty Ltd filtered the erroneous results out prior to inversion modelling and a consistent gradient can be seen in the south west section of the surveyed area which indicates negligible effect from removal of the data points.

Given the proximity of this southeastern anomaly to the Narragudgil prospect located approximately 2 kilometres from the main prospect, and the potential for an expansion of the Narragudgil prospect footprint, follow up geophysical work is under consideration.


Next Steps

The next steps will be to consider further IP survey work to the south east of the area recently surveyed, overlapping the current survey area and extending coverage toward the Narragudgil prospect.

In the event that the extended survey area confirms the additional potential IP chargeability anomaly to the south east, this will be considered for inclusion in the drill test plan to be designed for the main West Wyalong copper gold target.


THE EXPLORATION RESULTS IN DETAIL

About the magnetic anomaly and the closely correlating chargeability anomaly

Figure 2 (in link below) shows the general location of the copper gold target in relation to the regional tectonics and mineral occurrences, including Lake Cowal mine to the north, the adjacent West Wyalong goldfields, and the Narragudgil and Yiddah North prospects within the West Wyalong Project tenement area.

Figure 3 (in link below) shows the 3D magnetic susceptibility inversion model with associated cross sections (pseudosections) zoomed to the new target area. There is a clearly discernable magnetic low in the southern portion of the highlighted area of interest (darker blue colours) which appears to plunge to the south.

Figure 4 (in link below) shows the 3D IP chargeability inversion model using acquired data from the August 2015 ground IP survey. The results show that the central portion of the area of interest is more chargeable than surrounding rock types, closely correlating with the magnetic low in Figure 3. The positive chargeability response in the southeast is encouraging also and will require further assessment in conjunction with further analysis of the Narragudgil Prospect.

Additional resistivity inversion modelling (not shown in this report) confirmed a broad resistive feature in the subsurface geology at depths below 200m.

The response of this feature is consistent with that expected by a large porphyry stock.


About the Coincident Strong Geochemistry

Shallow aircore drilling conducted by Newcrest Mining Ltd. (ASX:NCM) intersected strong gold and copper geochemistry, providing additional confirmation of the porphyry copper-gold signature. It is important to note that the drilling was performed by Newcrest in 2000, prior to the MIMDAS survey conducted during the 2002-2003 period.

A plan view and section from the 17 July 2014 announcement are reproduced in Figure 5 for ease of reference. Intersections above the magnetic anomaly include gold from 0.05 g/t to 0.24 g/t, and copper to 645 ppm, which are considered to be strong geochemical anomalies in the context of shallow aircore drilling (see Appendix A in link below for further details).

As can be seen from the cross section in Figure 5 (in link below), the holes are considered as not having tested the magnetic anomaly. The same is true for the IP chargeability anomaly. Being performed as part of a broad grid-based geochemical mapping exercise which extended across a much larger region, the Newcrest shallow drilling did not target what we now know to be a strong magnetic anomaly with a coincident IP chargeability high. This is additionally confirmed by the absence of any such references in the company's historical exploration reports.

Had the exploration company known about the coincident magnetic and IP chargeability anomalies, there would have been a strong case for drilling much deeper holes.


JORC Table 1

In accordance with section 5.8.2 of the ASX listing rules, Section 1 (Sampling Techniques and Data), and Section 2 (Reporting of Exploration Results) of Table 1 of the JORC Code are attached as Appendix B to this announcement (see link below).

To view the tables and figures, please visit:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-ARD-735366.pdf


About Argent Minerals Limited:

Argent Minerals Ltd. (ASX:ARD) is an Australian publicly listed company with a 100% interest in a silver/gold project at Kempfield NSW. Work is underway on the preparation of an EIS and a feasibility study for the first stage of the project which will involve heap leaching some 8.8 million tonnes of mainly oxide and transitional material to produce over 9.5 million ounces of silver and 15,000 ounces of gold over a 5 year mine life. Argent is also earning up to a 70% interest in two other NSW projects - gold at West Wyalong and base metals at Sunny Corner.



Contact:

David Busch, Managing Director
M: +61 415 613 800
E: david.busch@argentminerals.com.au

Argent Minerals Ltd.
T: +61 2 9262 2211
F: +61 2 9475 5346
E: admin@argentminerals.com.au
www.argentminerals.com.au