Great Southern Mining Ltd (ASX:GSN) has identified and ranked 21 new gold targets after evaluating a newly acquired regional exploration database in the Duketon Belt that include more than 12,000 drill holes and 24,000 soil samples.
Seven of the newly identified areas are drill ready, with Golden Star the most advanced and first inline.
Design of a drill program is underway at Golden Star, which 2017-2018 drilling demonstrated to be over 600 metres of strike length of thick continuous zone of gold mineralisation with multiple plus 50-gram-metre gold intersections.
High-grade gold trends in historic drill data correlate to the same mineralised structure that hosts the Rosemont deposit and the Ben Hur deposit.
An extensive soil sample program is due to begin this month at the newly identified One Weight Wonder target to refine the coherent area of anomalism, which has a strike length of 1-kilometre.
“Project pipeline in place”
Chief executive director Sean Gregory said: “Assessment of the new tenure has identified 21 new targets with seven of them ready for drill testing.
“Golden Star deposit is seen as the highest-ranked of these significant opportunities, which we plan to explore immediately.
“With a project pipeline in place to maximise the probability of discovery, we are confident we are exploring in the right areas on all fronts.
“We now hold 459 square kilometres of highly prospective tenure in the region and this has opened the floodgates of target generation and project development in the Laverton region.”
Serious player in Duketon Belt
The company’s organic growth potential was given a major boost following the acquisition of E38/3518 in July 2020 which saw prospective tenure expand to 47 square kilometres.
Great Southern’s most recent acquisition of an irrevocable and exclusive option to purchase three large exploration licences now positions the company as a serious player in the Duketon Belt with 459 square kilometres of highly prospective ground.
Plan view highlighting GSN’s large tenement package and the highly prospective mineralised trends.
Expansive regional exploration dataset
The company has acquired and collated an expansive regional exploration dataset covering its own tenements and the broader Duketon Belt.
GSN now has data from more than 12,000 RAB, AC, RC and DD drill holes and in excess of 24,000 soil samples.
The highlight of the dataset was the discovery of more than 8,000 metres of RC drilling into Golden Star with this demonstrating high grades (up to 60 g/t gold) and in places more than 90-gram-metre intersections.
Project development
Great Southern is continuing to review the historical database and planning systematic evaluation of the acquired tenements and prospects.
Its clear intent is to develop a strategic pipeline with all levels of target generation.
The pipeline is designed to aid the exploration strategy by ranking the known prospects and targets to highlight the potential of Western Australian portfolio as it stands in 2021.
Each milestone is defined by a specific deliverable and has a decision ‘gate’ which projects must pass through before moving to the next milestone.
Economic criteria and probability of success increase as projects move along the pipeline.
The pipeline also aids ranking as it groups projects relative to the level of development.
Next steps
Planning for an extensive RC drill out at Golden Star is well advanced, with a drill rig booked and a program of work from the WA Mines Department (DMIRS) is approved.
A soil program at OWW has been designed to delineate the extent of the anomalous gold area with intention to further refine the drill target.
The plus 200 multi-element soil program is underway, and it is expected that GSN will be in full swing on a RC drill program at Golden Star in the area by the time samples are analysed.
GSN intends to follow up on any anomalies generated from the soil program utilising the expected RC rig onsite with immediate drill testing.