Variscan Mines (ASX:VAR) has received approvals to drill test prospective gold targets within its St Pierre gold project located in France.
Drill rigs are expected to arrive at site shortly to commence an initial 1,300 metre reverse circulation and diamond drilling program scheduled to test two highly prospective targets.
The Belleville prospect is a 900 x 400 metre bedrock gold anomaly where previous sampling recorded rock chips up to 21.5 g/t gold and soil values up to 2.4 g/t gold.
The Ville Tirard prospect has had historical drilling intersect thick zones of near-surface gold mineralisation with grades averaging around 3-4 g/t gold.
Both prospects are situated within the St Pierre licence, which surrounds the historic La Bellière gold mine which produced 334,000 ounces at 12 g/t gold.
Drill target details
At St Pierre, previous exploration by Variscan has defined two gold targets along strike from France’s third largest gold mine, La Bellière.
At Belleville previous exploration has defined a 900 x 400 metre zone of strongly anomalous gold values up to 2.4 g/t gold in soils displaying a similar gross orientation to the gold bearing shear structure at the La Bellière mine.
Two traverses of 16 inclined, 60 metre deep reverse circulation holes (~1000 metres) are planned to test the anomaly across the interpreted east-north-east striking shear zone.
At Ville Tirard, two shallow core holes will test an area where historical drilling at the western end of the main gold field intersected broad 15-20+ metre zones of gold mineralisation with individual assays grading up to 33 g/t gold.