Vango Mining Ltd (ASX:VAN) will shortly commence a 3,000-metre reverse circulation (RC) drilling program on the Ned’s Creek joint venture with Lodestar Minerals Ltd (ASX:LSR).
The drilling will target the Contessa granite contact over a 700-metre zone where gold nuggets have been recovered and scope open pit resource potential within an adjacent strong supergene zone.
Vango has authorised the RC drill rig currently operating on its Marymia Gold Project to re-deploy to Neds’ Creek and the program is scheduled to commence within 10 days.
An initial program comprising up to 3,000 metres of RC drilling is planned for Contessa and Central Park prospects.
Contessa program
The granite contact at Contessa represents a major structural corridor that has not been effectively tested.
Drilling along strike at Central Park and Gidgee Flat prospects has confirmed that gold mineralisation occurs within and adjacent to late intrusions preferentially localised on the granite-greenstone contact.
The planned RC program is designed to specifically target the granite contact at Contessa as a potential feeder for the mineralisation discovered to date.
The Contessa mineralisation comprises a series of north-dipping, stacked lenses within an intensely altered host sequence.
Mineralised lenses have been defined over a strike distance of 200 metres in RC and diamond drilling (system remains open) that reported a number of high-grade gold intersections within an extensive, mineralised sericite-pyrite alteration halo.
The Contessa supergene zone will be targeted in this program to confirm and refine the distribution of significant gold mineralisation in aircore drilling, with the aim of identifying a potential open-pit resource.
Central Park
RC drilling will also be completed at Central Park to follow up earlier results that indicate the potential to extend the zone of contact-related gold mineralisation.
At Central Park, mineralisation remains open down-dip and along strike from significant intersections reported from an initial four-hole RC drilling program.
Ned’s Creek Project JV
Vango Mining is earning a 51% interest in the Ned’s Creek joint venture by contributing $5 million of expenditure over three years at the project on the Yilgarn Craton margin, 150 kilometres west of Imbin.