Carnavale Resources Ltd (ASX:CAV) (FRA:YBB) has extended the McTavish East and McTavish North gold anomalies in the second round of aircore drilling at the Kookynie Gold Project in Western Australia.
The drilling, which was designed to follow up three gold anomalies identified by the first round of drilling in December 2020, is part of Carnavale’s strategy to explore and define sufficient high-grade gold resources that can be mined and transported to a processing plant nearby.
Results of up to 2 metres at 16.25 g/t from 54 metres have been returned, providing encouragement to the company.
“Mineralisation analogous to historic mines”
Chairman Ron Gajewski said: “The company continues to explore at a fast pace at the Kookynie Gold Project.
“This recent round of drilling has extended the anomalous areas first identified in December and has now intersected the high-grade gold mineralisation analogous to the historic gold mines that the Kookynie Mining District is famous for.
“The anomalies are growing in scale and grade by an order of magnitude from their initial identification.”
McTavish East high-grade results
Bostech Drilling completed a second program of 117 aircore holes at the Kookynie Gold Project for 5,967 metres.
This program tested the extents and potential of the multiple gold anomalies and structural features identified in the first round of aircore drilling and as well as the 16.25 g/t hit, other results at McTavish East include:
- 8 metres at 0.9 g/t from 70 metres, including 4 metres at 1.52 g/t;
- 7 metres at 0.32 g/t from 81 metres; and
- 2 metres at 3.11 g/t from 14 metres.
The second phase of drilling was extended along strike of the original anomaly to the northeast to expand the extent of the gold mineralisation prior to reverse circulation (RC) drilling.
The program has extended the mineralised zone by more than 100 metres to the northeast and remains open.
McTavish North drilling results
At McTavish North strong intersections include:
- 6 metres at 1.54 g/t gold from 2 metres, including 2 metres at 3.43 g/t and 2 metres at 1.01 g/t;
- 10 metres at 0.74 g/t from 12 metres, including 6 metres at 1.09 g/t; and
- 6 metres at 1.08 g/t from 8 metres.
The McTavish North Prospect has abundant old workings and pits developed by historic miners that have not been tested by modern exploration techniques until now.
Rock chips from around these old workings have returned gold assays that include 33.21 g/t and 9.93 g/t.
The recent aircore drilling has identified wide zones of gold mineralisation in the regolith profile that provides a vector to potential high-grade mineralisation at depth.
The new zone identified by recent drilling strikes 160 metres to the north and remains open.
Exploration strategy
Carnivale’s work proposed work program includes:
- Additional aircore drilling to define the extents of the new anomalies at McTavish East and McTavish North;
- Infill aircore drilling to outline the detail of the new anomalies;
- RC drilling for the bedrock source of these regolith anomalies; and
- Interpretation of the multi-element geochemistry and drainage anomalies to provide further understanding of the morphology of the mineralising systems.