White Cliff Minerals Ltd (ASX:WCN) has identified a new gold target through soil sampling, which discovered grades as high as 42.1 g/t gold at the Burtville East prospect within the Merolia gold project near Laverton, Western Australia.
The 250x185 metre gold in-soil anomaly follows two other recent anomalies discovered within the Merolia project.
The Burtville East anomaly occurs immediately around historical workings and the maximum values occur adjacent to historical ore stockpiles.
Further work will focus on preparing the required approvals for drilling in late 2016 or early 2017.
Todd Hibberd, managing director, commented: “The Merolia soil geochemical sampling program keeps delivering substantial gold in soil anomalies and the Burtville East gold anomaly is even better that the recently announced anomalies at Ironstone and Comet Well.
“We now have two bullseye anomalies to drill test as well as the 2.7 kilometres long Comet Well anomaly.”
Merolia gold project
Merolia hosts the Ironstone, Comet Well and Burtville East gold anomalies.
The Comet Well anomaly contains gold values up to 2.6 g/t gold over a zone of 2.7 kilometres in length and 200-400 metres in width.
Gold nuggets and visible gold were discovered at the nearby Ironstone Gold prospect during 2016.
The Burtville anomaly occurs immediately around historical workings that consist of two shafts and several mullock or ore dumps.
The historical workings targeted quartz veins within strongly foliated basalts.
Historical drilling intersected substantial mineralisation including 5 metres at 33 g/t gold, 2 metres at 6.65 g/t gold and 3 metres at 5.3 g/t gold.
The grade of the soil samples adjacent to the mullock dumps suggests that these could actually be ore stockpiles.
Background
While White Cliff undertakes fieldwork ahead of drilling at the Merolia gold project in Western Australia, the company’s flagship project remains the Aucu gold deposit.
The 89% owned Aucu gold deposit is located in the Kyrgyz Republic, which is a democratic republic bordering Kazakhstan and western China.
The company announced a maiden inferred resource for the Aucu gold deposit above a cut-off grade of 1 g/t gold of 1.15 million tonnes grading 4.2 g/t gold for 156,000 ounces of contained gold.
In 2015, drilling identified exceptional gold mineralisation east of this resource at the Eastern Gold Zone (EGZ) over a strike length of at least 500 metres.
Results included 8 metres at 55.2 g/t gold and 4 metres at 59.9 g/t gold.
Overall metallurgical recovery of all mineralised zones discovered at Aucu is 99% with gravity recoverable gold averages of 88.6%.
Analysis
The Merolia gold project in Western Australia continues to emerge as a prospective project for White Cliff alongside its more advanced flagship Aucu gold deposit.
This soil testing program has proven successful having now uncovered three gold in-soil anomalies being Comet Well, Ironstone and Burtville East.
Given the mineralisation recognised in this region consists of quartz structures that contain visible gold as evidenced by gold nuggets, the exploration potential of this project is proving to be significant.
White Cliff most recently identified additional visible gold intersections from recent drill holes at the Quartz Zone and the Eastern Gold Zone within the 89% owned Aucu gold deposit in Kyrgyz Republic, central Asia.
Assays of the intersections have revealed grades of up to 41.6 g/t gold.
The company is awaiting assay results for 7 holes at Aucu.
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