PNX Metals Ltd's (ASX:PNX)(FRA:4P1) surface rock chip sampling at the Burnside exploration project, including the Fountain Head anticline and Western Arm North prospects, has returned high gold values from multiple priority target locations.
The samples returned values of up to 7.21 g/t gold, which highlight the untested potential for discovery of additional economic gold mineralisation in the region.
PNX managing director James Fox said: “These areas have only experienced limited exploration in the past and the new results strongly support the potential of these new target areas to host additional gold mineralisation within easy trucking distance to supplement and extend future gold processing operations at Fountain Head.”
Fountain Head extensions
Burnside is 170 kilometres south of Darwin in the Pine Creek region of the Northern Territory and surrounds PNX’s 100%-owned Fountain Head Gold Project, which hosts a JORC 2012-compliant resource estimate of 2.94 million tonnes at 1.7 g/t gold for 156,000 ounces of gold.
Recent field assessment tracing the Fountain Head fold-hinge located an outcrop of quartz veining and shearing (around 3 metres wide) on the western limb of the anticline around 1,200 metres south east of the Fountain Head deposit, sampling of which returned 1.17 g/t gold.
Importantly, gold mineralisation has now been identified over a considerable distance (greater than 5 kilometres) along the Fountain Head anticline fold-hinge from ‘Banner’ in the west to the ‘Lady Josephine’ prospect in the southeast.
Western Arm North
At Western Arm North, about 20 kilometres to the west of Fountain Head, surface rock chip sampling of sulphidic quartz veins and sheared host rocks that lie within a linear north–south trending 900 metres long x 400 metres wide surface gold in soil anomaly returned results ranging from 0.38 g/t to 4.79 g/t gold.
These results further support the interpretation that Western Arm North is the soil-covered northern continuation of the same faulted anticlinal fold hinge zone that hosts Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd’s (TSE:KL) (NYSE:KL) Western Arm gold deposit (inferred resource 1.79 million tonnes at 1.4 g/t gold for 86,000 contained ounces) which is around 1-kilometre to the south.
Three drill traverses (spaced 300 metres to 500 metres apart) of 20 metres deep vertical reconnaissance holes were completed across the anomaly in 1993 with several of those holes intersecting anomalous gold within weathered ferruginous quartz veining and sediments.
Burnside Exploration Project – target and rock chip sample locations.
Regional targets visited
Other regional targets were also assessed with strong rock chip gold results being returned from sulphidic quartz veining at J25 (7.21 g/t gold), Barton’s (0.42 g/t and 1.21 g/t gold) and Maria (up to 1 g/t gold).
At J25, strongly sulphidic quartz veins occur within a regional scale structure (the ‘Mt Shoebridge Fault’ that can be traced for +/- 30 kilometres along the western margin of the Burnside Project).
At Barton’s, the quartz veins sampled are within a 1,200-metre-long gold in soil anomaly along the eastern limb of a regional anticline fold hinge.
At Maria, brecciated and ferruginous quartz veining occurs at the northern end of the regional scale Yam Creek Anticline that also hosts PNX’s high-grade Iron Blow zinc-gold-silver VMS deposit (part of the Hayes Creek project) to the south.
PNX’s field team were unable to access the priority Medusa and Chimera targets due to pastoral activities and will re-visit this area after the NT wet season.
Further geological mapping and field assessment will also be completed at J25, Barton’s, and Maria prior to a drill test decision.
Next steps
The near-mine and regional exploration program, including drilling and airborne geophysics will re-commence next quarter.
Fox said: “The company is finalising planning for an aggressive program of follow-up activities including aeromagnetic surveying, drilling, and further field inspections.”
The south-eastern end of the Fountain Head anticline, Klondyke and Western Arm North, require drill testing to determine the significance of the bedrock anomalies at each location which will be completed in conjunction with the planned follow-up drilling around Fountain Head - including a potential new gold lode position at the NW Breccia.
Additionally, once the formal agreement for PNX’s acquisition of the Glencoe tenement from Ausgold Ltd (ASX:AUC) (FRA:AU4) has been agreed on and executed initial drilling is also planned for the Glencoe gold deposit.