Great Southern Mining Ltd (ASX:GSN) has intersected a zone of well-developed high sulphidation and epithermal-style mineralisation in reconnaissance drilling at the 100%-owned Rocky Pond prospect within its wider Edinburgh Park Project in North Queensland.
The intersected zone is within the recently discovered breccia-hosted intrusive related gold mineralised system which was defined by mapping and rock chip sampling.
Shallow extensions of the discovery area were tested during the small drilling program and comprised five reverse circulation (RC) holes for a total of 600 metres.
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Great Southern executive chairman John Terpu said the Rocky Ponds breccia pipe had already yielded exciting results for GSN.
He continued: “While we continue to analyse the data, what is clear is that we have intersected a well-developed hydrothermal system that appears to manifest as a steeply inclined breccia pipe.”
“We have only just scratched the surface of this system when you consider the depths of gold mineralisation in other breccia systems such as Mt Wright and the Welcome breccia pipes.”
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Rocky Ponds’ breccia was considered to be an immediate ‘drill ready’ target with excellent logistical access and exciting rock chip results at surface returning up to 0.38 g/t gold and 6.9 g/t silver confirmed associated gold and silver mineralisation.
The well-developed sulphidic hydrothermal system has been discovered at Rocky Ponds and this system contains a metal association with that hydrothermal fluid.
This strong sulphide mineralisation is generally characterised by a high silver range between 1 and 50 g/t with elevated base metals zinc and copper between 0.1% to 0.8%.
“Well-developed high-sulphidation gold-silver-copper deposit”
Terpu added: “It is now a case of understanding more about the controls on mineralisation, mineralogy and looking at other analogues to the orebody.
“The drilling has intersected the margins of a mineralised system that resembles the Mt Carlton system.
“The exploration results are highly encouraging for the potential existence of a well-developed high-sulphidation gold-silver-copper deposit.
“We are busy planning detailed mapping and geophysics programs in the second half of 2019 to delineate more structures and understand the size potential of the system.”
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Next steps will aim to extract more information from the drilling data to understand more about the controls on mineralisation.
This will be in terms of alteration mineralogy, multi-element zoning and vectors to ore, including some petrology and Hylogger spectral scanner.
Near-term exploration will also propose geophysics to delineate structures and define size potential, particularly ground magnetics and electrical methods.