Southern Gold Limited (ASX:SAU) (FRA:UH4) has started drilling at the Nettle zone at its 100%-owned Deokon Project in South Korea to target the newly mapped structural intersection with coincident peak gold soil anomalies from a multi-prospect scale soil survey.
The company’s new soil program results further defined the coincident gold-silver-arsenic soil anomaly at Nettle.
The combination of a prospective structural trap, competent host rock in the area at depth (andesite), silica-illite-adularia-pyrite alteration and high-grade gold-silver in outcrop and low-sulphidation geochemical signature, represents a compelling drill target at Nettle.
The company is also continuing work on its other South Korean projects, including Daeam and Geum Mar.
Deokon Project
A high level of recent field activity has advanced the Deokon Project along the strike of known mineralised zones, extending the Golden Surprise Trend to a strike length of at least one kilometre.
An initial soil sampling grid over the trend revealed a strong gold-silver-arsenic anomaly at Nettle, and this was recently followed up with an extensional soil sampling program and detailed structural mapping, which confirmed that the location near the Nettle outcrop is the most prospective zone to drill test.
The outcrop at the Nettle Zone has returned a previously announced peak rock chip assay of 8.56 g/t gold and 8,940 g/t silver.
The company’s proposed drill program involves at least two diamond drill holes for 250 metres and likely a third targeting the intersection point of the Nettle NNE trend and the Golden Surprise Trend.
Additional holes may be planned along strike, depending on initial results and it may include holes at Thistle and Thorn in due course.
Daeam Project
The company has completed a significant soil sampling program at Daeam, which involves 419 samples over an area covering about 2 kilometres in strike length by 0.6 kilometres wide, trending NNE (assays pending).
Due to the significant amount of float and subcrop in the area, it is expected that the soils will be effective in highlighting the highest gold-arsenic zones.
Geum Mar project
Assays have been received for 75 rock samples collected during reconnaissance sampling in the surrounding area around the Golden Horse Quarry at Geum Mar, to find possible parallel or strike extensions from previously identified areas, as well as south of the historic mine at Banryong.
A further 23 rock samples were taken during the soil sampling program and the peak assay was 0.56 g/t gold.
However, there does appear to be a northerly to NNW trend in the subtle anomalies and some systematic traversing across these peaks is warranted to see if any more high-grade gold rock chips in outcrop can be found to complement the previous peak samples of 24g/t, 4.98g/t and 3.88g/t gold.
Upcoming work
In addition to the current drill program at Deokon, project generation reconnaissance sampling has been completed and will continue in the Yeongdong Basin to the north-east of Southern Gold’s former Weolyu Project.
No further work was warranted in the tenure surrounding the historical Weolyu mine and the two tenements have been relinquished.
Work in this district is now concentrated on the significant epithermal potential within the rest of the large Cretaceous Yeongdong pull-apart basin.