Mawson Resources Ltd (TSE:MAW) (OTCMKTS:MWSNF) told investors it has tripled its ground in the famous Victorian goldfields of Australia as it outlined exploration plans for its Sunday Creek project, where it aims to target high grades at depth and along strike.
Sunday Creek (previously called the Clonbinane project) is a significant historic high-grade gold mining area, featuring historic mines over an 11 kilometre (km) trend and was acquired when Mawson closed the strategic and acquisition investment in March with Nagambie Resources (ASX:NAG).
READ: Mawson Resources closes subscription deal with Nagambie Resources for central Victorian goldfields in Australia
Mawson now has a total land holding of 19,365 hectares at wholly-owned Sunday Creek property.
Like Kirkland Gold's (TSE:KL) Fosterville mine, Sunday Creek is a historic epizonal goldfield, mined during the 1800s to early 1900s.
It was explored for near-surface oxide gold during the 1990s and early 2000s, Mawson CEO, Mike Hudson said in a statement.
"Given the exploration success at Fosterville we now understand that epizonal systems can develop extremely high-grade zones. This has provided insight into a never-explored search space for high grades at depth in one of the most fertile gold regions in the world," he added.
Hudson noted that drilling over 800 metres of strike, down to a maximum average depth of 80 metres had been carried out at the so-called Golden Dyke-Apollo prospect area. Results included eight metres at 11.3 grams per ton (g/t) gold from 66 metres including 2 metres at 40.3 g/t gold.
Trenching has also revealed broad low-grade oxide gold with one trench returning 166 metres at a grade of 0.9 g/t gold, noted the company boss.
He told investors Mawson now plans to undertake large-scale, deeper-seeking geophysical work followed by diamond drilling during the third and fourth quarter of this year to target high-grade gold at depth and along strike.
Specifically, this will entail micro-gravity, detailed ground magnetics and induced polarization (IP) over coming months, followed by 5,000 metres of diamond drilling during 3Q and 4Q to target high-grade and adjacent mineralization intersected by earlier drilling at Apollo-Golden Dyke and potential repeats of mineralization along the 11km mine trend, the firm said.
Further plans for Mawson's two other joint venture projects, Redcastle and Doctor's Gully in Australia, will be made as further data compilation occurs over coming months.
Mawson has the right to earn up to a 70% joint venture interest in Nagambie's Redcastle exploration license by spending A$1 million at the property over five years.
It also has the right to earn up to a 70% joint venture interest in Nagambie's Doctor's Gully retention license, again by spending A$1 million over five years.
Shares in Mawson added 3.7% to stand at C$0.42 each.
--Updates for share price--
Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com