Monday 17th July 2023 – Großarl, Austria
Ekometall Group Ltd., through its wholly owned Austrian subsidiary Ekometall Exploration GmbH. (EMEX), have launched a soil sampling survey across the historic Schwarzwand mining complex, South of the town of Hüttschlag, in Central Austria.
Following the completion of a seed financing backed by 17 private and 3 corporate investors, the company’s local geologists entered the field in in June 2023 to map, identify and sample the 19 historic mines and mineral occurrences within the current ‘Großarl’ licence boundary, following extensive archive data sets and maps provided by Geosphere and the Salzburger Landesarchiv.
The map below shows our current exploration plan and historic mine outlines, overlaid onto the original pencil-drawn 1835 map of the region.
The Schwarzwand mine represents one of 4 key exploration targets in the Großarl licence area and was primarily exploiting 5m spaced, concordant, 50-100cm thick veins of quartz-sulphide ore. Average copper grades calculated from historical records (mine maps, production figures) by Günther (1987) for the Schwarzwand mine are 1-1.25%. This was not considered much at the time, yet they were able to keep the business profitable for almost 4 centuries. Reports suggest the deposit remains open and intact in all directions from the historic workings.
The Schwarzwand mine workings are some of the oldest and most important in the Großarl Valley. Mining here is said to have started as early as the year 1010, operating on and off until the 18th century. The areas first copper and sulphur smelters were also located nearby.
The EMEX field team have successfully identified mineralised zones of chalcopyrite & pyrite (confirmed visually and by preliminary PXRF analysis, pending assay) at Schwarzwand, ahead of schedule and thus, have brought forwards the next phase of the field program.
Soil sampling will follow a 50x50m grid, be tested by PXRF on-site, and sent to ALS in Romania for ICP assay. This is intended to identify the true extent of mineralisation and the structural relationships of metal enrichment outside of the known workings. When combined with historical models, structural mapping and regional geophysical surveys, this sampling should lead us to defining confident drill targets for Q4 of this year.
The below photo of a sample from the Schwarzwand ‘waste’ dumps shows chalcopyrite and pyrite sulphide mineralisation, representative of the prospect.
Ekometall Exploration GmbH Geschäfstführer Severina Ditzov commented:
Hüttschlag & Großarl are small, tight communities with some family lines predating even the 11th century mines, so it is a real honour to be able to be part of this project and to know the history, that fuelled and supported the original foundation of these settlements more than a millennium ago. We would like to thank everybody in the area for their engagement so far.
Ekometall Group Ltd. Managing Director Liam Hardy commented:
The fast identification of mineralised rock units and acceleration of the program by our local team is exciting news and provides the first validation for early shareholders, who showed us support while armed with only a few watercolour maps and shiny rock samples. We have proven this month that Land Salzburg is a more-than-viable jurisdiction for exploration and hope to keep on delivering for all investors and stakeholders as our projects develop both here and Tirol.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if these rocks were in British Columbia or Western Australia, they’d be drilled to Swiss Cheese and mined out by now, so we are uniquely privileged to have staked such a large, prospective land package, with such a treasure trove of historic data, for such valuable critical metals, in such a supportive jurisdiction, ahead of the trend in the ‘New Western Tethyan’ region.
We look forward to sharing more results and data as we approach our next round of financing to drill test the youngest-oldest mining district in Europe.
The image below shows the historic Schwarzwand mine outline in red crosshatching, and the proposed soil sampling grid at Schwarzwand in a black dashed line, overlaid on a recoloured LiDAR basemap.
About Ekometall Group Ltd.:
Our company was founded in 2023 as ‘Ekometall Group Ltd.’ in the UK, with a wholly owned subsidiary ‘Ekometall Exploration GmbH’ in Austria, following a year of intensive archive work to unearth modern scale development targets amongst the extensive records of the Geologische Bundesanstalt (Geosphere) and Salzburger Landesarchive.
Utilising more than 3000 pages of watercolour painted maps, detailed extraction records and first-hand expert accounts of past operation, our team moved to secure Austria’s largest mineral exploration land package, comprising 705 Schürfberechtigung (exploration claims) over c.322km2 of prospective ground, between 4 projects in Land Salzburg & Tirol, containing more than 70 past-producing mines and mineral occurrences.
EMEX completed an initial seed financing with participation from international funds and local private investors and established a skilled board & advisory to manage an ambitious work program throughout 2023-2024.
Our geologists are active in the field, verifying Austria’s exceptional historic geological data, combining good-old-fashioned field work, with modern geochemistry, geophysics and remote sensing technology. Our goal this summer season is to digitally model, define and rank our targets for viability and further investigation through winter and into 2024.
We believe we have all of the necessary components lined up to rediscover and develop copper deposits, in a country that is pro-mining and highly supportive of its traditional. well-managed and culturally integrated national industry.
For more information about our projects and investment opportunities in English and German:
Follow: @emexploration
Visit: www.emexploration.at
Email: Servus@emexploration.at