Alkane Resources Limited (ASX:ALK) has received high-grade gold hits in drilling of regional prospects with potential to provide additional feed to the Tomingley Gold Operations (TGO) in Central West NSW.
Diamond core drilling of the Roswell prospect four kilometres from the TGO mine is part of an extensive regional exploration program focused on the immediate mine area south of the operations.
Aircore drilling at the San Antonio prospect has defined further gold mineralisation while reverse circulation (RC) drilling will begin shortly at this prospect along with Roswell and El Paso.
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These three prospects within the Tomingley Gold Project appear to have a cumulative strike length of 2,500 metres.
At Roswell, the diamond drilling has confirmed two high-grade gold intersections:
- 11.55 metres at 2.15 g/t gold from 323.45 metres, including 2.25 metres at 4.00 g/t from 325.05 metres and 1.90 metres at 4.89 g/t from 330 metres; and - 7.65 metres at 2.50 g/t from 340.60 metres, including 2.95 metres at 4.48 g/t from 345.30 metres.
Mineralisation has now been defined over a north-south strike length of 500 metres.
This may extend an additional 300 metres north to include the McLeans South prospect area.
Aircore drilling in the region comprising 66 holes for 5,839 metres at San Antonio prospect, five kilometres south of the mine, has defined further mineralisation.
Best results were 3 metres at 1.81 g/t from 57 metres to the end of hole; 15 metres at 1.29 g/t from 57 metres; and 3 metres at 1.10 g/t from 57 metres.
RC drilling to begin
Alkane will shortly begin RC drilling at Roswell, San Antonio and El Paso prospects as it seeks to further understand the potential for gold resources.
At Roswell, 23 holes are planned for about 4,500 metres and this work is expected to begin later this month.
There will be 21 RC holes drilled at San Antonio for about 5,000 metres and one 300-metre diamond core hole.
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A nine-hole RC program for about 2,500 metres will be drilled at El Paso to test a high-grade gold structure where the cover sequence is substantially shallower.
The Tomingley project covers about 440 square kilometres stretching 60 kilometres along the Newell Highway from Tomingley in the north, through Peak Hill and almost to Parkes in the south.
It includes the TGO, an open pit mine with a 1 million tonnes per annum processing facility.
This operation is transitioning to underground during 2019.
Alkane is conducting an extensive regional exploration program with the objective of defining additional resources that have potential to be mined via open pit or underground operations and fed to TGO.
This program has included the addition of about 110 square kilometres to the tenement package to the east of TGO.
READ: Alkane Resources reveals gold resource at Peak Hill mine near Tomingley Gold Operations
The region has many small historical workings but modern mining started with development of the Northparkes porphyry style copper-gold operations in 1994 to the present and Alkane’s Peak Hill heap leach gold operation from 1996 to 2005.
Alkane has recently defined a 108,000-ounce underground resource at Proprietary deposit at the Peak Hill mine, with scope to expand this at depth and at satellite deposits within an extensive alteration zone.