LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Canada and Australia-focussed mineral exploration company Panther Metals announced the enlargement of the Big Bear Project area on Monday, following an airborne geophysics survey.
The AIM-traded firm said the acquisition of an additional 19 mining claims included coverage for the southerly extension of the historical Schreiber Pyramid mine in the centre of the project area, and the historical Jedder Mine workings on the eastern side of the project area.

Two mining claims provided coverage of the southerly extent of the historical Schreiber Pyramid gold mine, the board explained, where high grade gold-bearing quartz veins were the focus of small scale mining in the 1930s.

In 1939 production was reported to be 136 tonnes at 17.6 grams of gold per tonne.

Six mining claims provided coverage of the small-scale historical Jedder Mine and mill site, where gold-bearing quartz veins were intermittently worked by open cut up to 15 metres deep between 1934 and 1986.

While the historical production was not reported, channel sampling of an 87 metre-long section of the Mill vein in 1984 yielded values up to 39.50 grams of gold and 73.17 grams of silver per tonne over 0.5 metres.

Panther said 11 mining claims were acquired on the basis of its preliminary data from its June airborne geophysics survey data, with four claims covering a combined electromagnetic and magnetic anomaly in the centre of the project area, and a further seven claims providing coverage of a magnetic anomaly in the east of the Big Bear Project area.

"This strategic acquisition allows us to consolidate our position around the high grade, past producing, Schreiber Pyramid mine and extend our footprint to encompass the highly prospective Jedder Mine area," said chief executive officer Darren Hazelwood.

"As we continue to piece together this previously fragmented, high grade property, I couldn't be more delighted with the technical team's progress as we advance the project rapidly towards a planned maiden drilling campaign."

Hazelwood said the progress made, combined with the additional capital now available to the company, enabled it to target an increased number of areas on the Big Bear property.

"With field operations resuming today, following a scheduled break, we look forward to ground truthing geophysical and soil geochemical anomalies and delineating ground geophysics targets ahead of subsequent drill testing."

At 1605 BST, shares in Panther Metals were up 9.09% at 7.2p.

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