Meteoric Resources NL (ASX:MEI) is set to commence its 2021 field season with the aim to rapidly advance the Palm Springs Gold Project in Western Australia towards production.
Key priorities include completing dewatering the Butchers Creek pit to allow drilling immediately beneath the pit floor and additional step-out and infill reverse circulation (RC) drilling to produce a mineral resource estimate.
The planned drilling under the pit floor will target unmined ore in the floor and immediately below the pit.
Resource estimate and scoping study
Historic information indicates a significant amount of gold ore was left behind when the operation ceased in the late 1990s due to a historically low gold price – and the company’s aim is to produce a maiden resource estimate below the Butchers Creek open-pit and along strike to the southwest and move rapidly into the study phase.
The numbers from any resource estimate will be used to underpin a scoping study and assuming the study is positive, the company intends to implement additional programs, including preliminary metallurgical test work, and geotechnical studies – which will support a pre-feasibility/feasibility study.
The company is set to begin a further 7,000 metres of drilling at Butchers Creek in May and will target high-grade fold-hinge gold mineralisation and to confirm and extend historic high-grade drilling beneath the Butchers Creek open pit.
Geomag (3D Voxel Block Model) and SGC (2D Vertical Section) data compared at Juruena. Both interpretations of the Deep IP chargeability anomaly show the same position and intensity of anomalism - the three planned holes are also shown.
Drilling to recommence in Brazil
The 2021 drill program commenced on schedule at Meteoric’s Juruena Project in Brazil, on February 15.
The program, which is a culmination of exploration carried out by the company over the last two years, consists of 3,600 metres of drilling with three drill holes pegged at around 1,200 metres deep.
Meteoric will test the large IP chargeability anomaly that lies beneath a historic shallow IP anomaly, major gold artisanal workings, giant soil copper-molybdenum-gold anomaly and fertile porphyry intrusive rocks.
After a brief delay, the initial hole (JUDD042) will recommence at around 650 metres depth in a zone of strong phyllic alteration, where geologists have noted quartz-molybdenite veins and veins of quartz, pyrite, chalcopyrite and bornite in the core.
This is the first time MEI geologists have recognised bornite in drilling outside the Crentes Fault Zone and adds further conviction to the company’s porphyry search.
Updated mineral resource estimate
The remainder of the assay results from the 2020 drill program have now been received and the company has commissioned Trepanier Pty Ltd to complete a mineral resource estimate update for all prospects in the Juruena Project.
The resource currently stands at 1.2 million tonnes at 6.3 g/t gold for 261,000 ounces, and the updated resource estimate is expected to be available for release to the market before the end of the month.