Encounter Resources (ASX:ENR) has confirmed a high-grade gold exploration opportunity following the review of historical exploration data at the East Thomson’s Dome project in Western Australia.
Importantly, the project is located just 5 kilometres from Newcrest Mining’s (ASX:NCM) major gold-copper mine at Telfer in the East Pilbara region.
Encounter’s shares were last trading 16.67% higher intra-day on Friday, at $0.105.
The company’s review of historical soil geochemical surveys at East Thomson’s compiled by Barrick Gold Corp (TSE:ABX) has confirmed a large (+2 kilometre long) gold anomaly adjacent to the historical gold occurrences.
This soil geochemistry confirms the potential for lateral extensions to the high-grade gold reefs identified at the Fold Closure and upgrades the scale potential of the East Thomson’s Project.
In addition, a surface prospecting exercise at East Thomson’s over an untested outcropping quartz reef has yielded gold nuggets that are interpreted to be the shedding from the nearby quartz reefs.
The identification of additional gold bearing reefs at Thomson’s further supports the potential of the project to generate multiple high-grade, near surface, gold targets.
Encounter’s upcoming drilling will focus on finding extensions to the reef style mineralisation at the Fold Closure and assess how these near surface mineralised reefs fit into a potential larger mineral system.
This program will involve a series of reverse circulation drill traverses and some diamond drilling to confirm the orientation the mineralised reef.
A second focus will be to follow up the diamond hole drilled by Barrick that contained an intersection of 3 metres at 8.3 g/t gold from 243 metres.
The drilling at East Thomson’s is planned to commence in June 2017 following a planned drilling program at a recent gold discovery made at Telfer West.