Frontier Resources (ASX: FNT) has acquired an exploration licence on Sudest Island in Milne Bay, eastern Papua New Guinea, where 2 small high grade gold mines had previous operated.
Previous exploration by Placer Pacific had demonstrated gold in drainage anomalies over a 45 kilometre strike length along the western two thirds of the island.
Sudest was also where alluvial gold was first discovered in the country.
Placer, which had selected the site for its potential to hold a minimum 1 million ounce resource, had noted then that limited prospect scale work had defined an east west trending area of 2200 metres by 400 metres that contained gold in ridge and spur soils.
This region is now being soil sampled on a grid basis to define the gold mineralised zones.
Trench sampling west of the historic Adelaide Mine had returned 2 metres of 104.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold along with 2 metres of 15.35 g/t, 2 metres of 16.0 g/t and 2 metres of 11.6 g/t gold.
Sampling at the Cornucopia historic mine about 1.5 kilometres east of Adelaide in 1997 had returned gold results of 6 metres of 10.96 g/t gold in one of four trenches dug.
Frontier’s own reconnaissance check returned grab outcrop rock samples from historic hand trenches dug at the Adelaide prospect with assays of up to 256g/t gold with 19g/t silver.
Sudest Island is lightly settled with 12 different clans living in widely settled villages along the coast with the company saying the coast was easily accessible by boat while the Tagula airstrip at the western end of the island is capable of handling light aircraft.