Alice Queen Ltd (ASX:AQX) has a second ground induced polarisation (IP) survey underway at Horn Island Project in Torres Strait, North Queensland, as it seeks to add to the project’s 524,000-ounce gold resource.
The surface dipole-dipole IP (DDIP) survey totalling 55 line kilometres will cover an area of 11 square kilometres and is designed to generate additional high priority targets for drilling.
It will cover an extensive area from south of the Horn Island historic pit area to the Southern Silicified Ridge (SSR).
“Key step forward”
Alice Queen’s managing director Andrew Buxton said, "The commencement of the IP survey is a key step forward in the company’s strategy to find more gold at Horn Island.
"IP has proven itself as the key geophysical method by which to locate buried sulphide mineralisation, and it is within the sulphides that all of the gold at Horn Island is hosted.”
Potential for multiple deposits
Horn Island has the potential to host multiple deposits and be a multi-million-ounce gold system and the company is hoping that the survey work will lead to the discovery of further gold.
The current resource is 16.7 million tonnes at 0.98 g/t gold for 524,000 ounces with 53% in the indicated category and 47% inferred.
Horn Island’s hydrothermal footprint covers around 352 kilometres and much of the hydrothermal footprint remains untested.
"Importantly, this survey will also expand upon significant areas of known gold mineralisation at the Southern Silicified Ridge just 2 kilometres south of the company’s historic open pit resource,” Buxton said.
"Once the results are analysed and new targets defined, Alice Queen is intending to drill test the highest priority targets immediately. The diamond core drill rig remains on site and is ready to go.”
Aim of survey
Alice Queen’s DDIP survey is designed to identify near-surface to deeply occurring chargeability anomalies that may be caused by sulphide minerals that are often associated with gold mineralisation at Horn Island.
DDIP survey area overlaid on IRGS metal enrichment pathfinder zones, associated with major NW and NE fault structures which may act as primary fluid source zones of gold deposits.
The survey is based on the success of previously completed historic ground array IP (GAIP) surveys and a recently completed DDIP survey that recognised a new gold zone across the Tatooine target area and may possibly represent extensions to the known resource area.
It will cover areas of interpretive structurally complex zones and mapped surface veining. These zones also display coincidental gold and pathfinder surface geochemistry anomalism, which collectively forms an extensive prospective hydrothermal IRG footprint.
This footprint is similar in scale to the Ravenwood 7-million-ounce gold deposit.
Strong previous results
A limited and shallow 9-hole diamond drill program previously completed by the company at SSR revealed vertical and strike extensive veined mineralisation.
Best intercepts returned in this program were 11 metres at 2.9 g/t gold from 70 metres and 2 metres at 5.6 g/t from 160 metres, including 1-metre at 8.2 g/t.
The gold system at SSR prospect remains open. Surface gold indicates a 3-kilometre strike which is coincident with historic GAIP chargeability anomalies located southeast and outside of the company’s previously completed drilling.
This adds further encouragement of a potentially large scale Intrusive Related Gold System (IRGS) that may host multiple gold deposits across Horn Island.
Next steps
Alice Queen will review the results from the DDIP survey in conjunction with its airborne magnetics, surface mapping and geochemical data to define additional priority target areas for diamond drill testing.
The company plans to start this drilling in the first quarter of 2022.