OzAurum Resources Ltd (ASX:OZM) has encountered widespread gold hits during reverse circulation (RC) drilling at Mulgabbie North Project, northeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
During the large-scale drilling program, the gold explorer uncovered a wide zone of primary gold mineralisation north of Mulgabbie North’s James prospect.
What’s more, the gold mineralisation is interpreted along strike and down-dip, while the RC drilling has extended the strike of primary gold mineralisation at Mulgabbie North to 1.3 kilometres in length.
Looking ahead, OzAurum is waiting on results for another 37 holes, covering just more than 6,000 metres, from drilling at the WA gold asset.
“Extremely exciting development”
Speaking to the results, OzAurum CEO and managing director Andrew Pumphrey said: “The intersection of a significant wide zone of gold mineralisation in a number of RC drill holes is an extremely exciting development at the James prospect.
“In particular, this RC drilling campaign has further extended the strike length of the Mulgabbie North project to 1.3 kilometres.
“This new discovery, coupled with the widespread gold zone that we recently intersected at the Alicia Prospect, demonstrates the enormous potential of Mulgabbie North to be a significant gold project situated directly adjacent to Northern Star’s Carosue Dam Mill.”
Drilling underway
OzAurum’s latest exploration campaign is a large-scale drilling program, designed to traverse 20,000 metres of ground at Mulgabbie North.
The first round of RC drilling covered a northern extension of the James prospect and parts of the Golden Goose target.
Results to date cover 22 holes, for 2,250 metres, where a wide zone of primary gold mineralisation was encountered.
Some of the best results include:
- 75 metres at 0.72 g/t gold from 105 metres, including 18 metres at 1.64 g/t;
- 14 metres at 1.58 g/t from 24 metres, including 1-metre at 5.28 g/t;
- 9 metres at 1.52 g/t from 117 metres;
- 6 metres at 1.39 g/t from 100 metres; and
- 20 metres at 0.68 g/t from 30 metres, including 4 metres at 1.48 g/t.
Overall, the results indicate a large envelope of gold mineralisation exists to the north of Mulgabbie’s James prospect.
In addition, the RC drilling campaign has defined primary gold mineralisation for over 1.3 kilometres of strike and OzAurum is confident that extensional RC drilling will further extend this strike.
The company stated: “We believe future RC drilling will continue to identify new primary gold mineralisation related to the numerous geochemical gold anomalies and recent saprolite hosted gold mineralisation targets identified by aircore drilling.”
Fresh RC results, combined with recently announced aircore results that defined new zones of mineralisation, mean Mulgabbie’s strike extends for at least 2.8 kilometres.
As drilling continues, the campaign underpins Mulgabbie’s emerging potential as what OzAurum believes could be “a significant gold project”.
Next on the agenda
Looking ahead, OzAurum is preparing to drill across Mulgabbie’s six prospects — Alicia, Ben, James, Libby, Hotel and Golden Goose — as it advances its large-scale exploration program.
Follow-up RC drilling at Mulgabbie North and at the Alicia Prospect is set to continue, along with ongoing RC drill testing on gold anomalies and extensions to the Ben and James prospects.
OzAurum currently has results pending for 37 RC drill holes, covering 6,072 metres of drilling.
Simultaneously, a 12,000-metre aircore drill program commenced on September 28 to test the drilling gap between the Alicia and Ben prospects.
To date, OzAurum has drilled 111 aircore holes for 8,501 metres at the Alicia prospect with results pending.
By undertaking best-practice RC exploration, the company hopes sampling and assay protocols will help lead to a JORC-compliant mineral resource at Mulgabbie North.
Due to the current high demand on assay laboratories, however, the ASX-lister is experiencing long delays with receiving assay results, with up to a 10-week turnaround time.
As a result, RC drilling is being undertaken on a three weeks on/three weeks off cycle to manage the delays.
In the meantime, a gravity survey over Mulgabbie North is due to commence on November 17 and take one week to complete.
OzAurum will provide regular market updates on exploration activities and report on drilling results as they become available.
Shares today are 9.38% higher at A$0.175.