Great Boulder Resources Ltd (ASX:GBR) has extensive exploration planned across its Side Well and Whiteheads gold projects as well as the emerging copper-nickel-cobalt belt at the Yamarna Project, which is host to the Mt Venn discovery, and the Winchester Project.
The company’s exploration strategy at Side Well is to generate a pipeline of projects, ranging from definition drilling through to greenfields discoveries.
This project is strategically positioned between Meekatharra and Latitude Consolidated Ltd’s (ASX:LCD) (FRA:1KX) Andy Well gold mine with Westgold Resources Ltd’s (ASX:WGX) (FRA:0W2) Bluebird Mill only 15 kilometres south of Meekathara.
Notably, the company has the option to acquire 75% of the project from Zebina Minerals Pty Ltd.
High priority targets
To date, drilling at the Mulga Bill prospect at Side Well has defined a more than 3.7-kilometre-long mineralised trend, which is open to the south.
Key intercepts include:
- 7 metres at 3.35 g/t from 122 metres;
- 2 metres at 12.94 g/t from 105 metres; and
- 13 metres at 2.37 g/t from 78 metres.
At the Matilda prospect, drilling returned 3 metres at 35.5 g/t in the same horizon as the Paddy’s Flat area with no drilling for 400 metres on either side.
At Jones Well target, the company identified a coincident gold-arsenic anomaly in WMC soil sampling which is in an ideal structural position.
Outside these three areas the project remains entirely unexplored, including the whole east side of the fold structure.
Exploration underway
Currently, 42,000 metres of aircore drilling to infill and define mineralisation at the Mulga Bill prospect is ongoing, with reverse circulation (RC) drilling planned in March or April to follow up significant intersections and target primary gold zones and strike extensions.
A CSIRO research program is also expected to commence in March.
Auger geochemistry programs over residual soil at the Jones Well and Side Well East targets are planned in March and initial aircore drilling at the Matilda prospect is expected to begin in quarter two.
The company’s projects across Western Australia.
Whiteheads Gold Project
The Whiteheads Gold Project is just 45 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie with tenure covering a 450 square kilometre area over 25 kilometres of strike and surrounding the 215,000 ounce at 1.69 g/t gold Lindsays resource (Nu Fortune Gold Ltd).
Additionally, the company is confident that the T5 nickel sulphide discovery at Carr Boyd by Estrella Resources Ltd (ASX:ESR) immediately to the north highlights the nickel potential at Whiteheads.
Blue Poles discovery
Exploration to date has identified very large gold-in-soil auger anomalies, including 6.5 kilometres of strike on the line of workings between Lady Betty and Seven Leaders and 5.5 kilometres of strike on the Arsenal trend.
Initial auger sampling on the Arsenal trend confirmed a coherent gold-in-soil anomaly over 3.8 kilometres long at +10 parts per billion gold, open to the south
Notably, initial aircore drilling discovered gold over a 1-kilometre strike length at Blue Poles with RC drilling intersecting up to 52 metres at 1.02 g/t from 28 metres to EOH in fresh rock, open to the south.
Current and planned exploration
A detailed gravity survey has been completed and processing is underway to identify nickel sulphide targets at depth and generate additional gold targets.
Auger sampling is ongoing on the Arsenal trend north and south of Blue Poles with the company working up a pipeline of prospects from geochem through to definition.
A follow up RC drilling program is planned upon the completion of gravity data processing and target planning in March or April.
Parallel aggressive exploration is planned.
Yamarna Mt Venn discovery
The company made the Mt Venn base metal discovery at its Yamarna project in 2017 with more than 13,700 metres drilled since then.
Every EM target drilled at Mt Venn has intersected sulphides, with key results including:
- 48 metres at 0.8% copper, 0.2% nickel, 0.07% cobalt from 103 metres;
- 18 metres at 0.8% copper, 0.1% nickel, 0.02% cobalt from 187 metres;
- 18 metres at 0.7% copper, 0.2% nickel, 0.05% cobalt from 92 metres;
- 27 metres at 0.6% copper, 0.2% nickel, 0.05% cobalt from 43 metres;
- 4.4 metres at 1.7% copper from 142.4 metres; and
- 9.5 metres at 1.0% copper from 178 metres.
Notably, Yamarna is 130 kilometres east of Laverton and 25 kilometres west of Gold Road Resources Ltd’s (ASX:GOR) (OTCMKTS:ELKMF) (FRA:E6Q) and Gold Fields Limited’s (JSE:GFI) (NYSE:GFI) (FRA:EDGA) (OTCMKTS:GFIOF) +6 million ounce Gruyere Gold Mine.
The complementary Winchester Project (JV with Ausgold Ltd) was added in 2019 with the company confident it had significant gold potential yet to be explored.
GBR is currently undertaking a strategic review on Yamarna and Winchester.