Musgrave Minerals Ltd (ASX:MGV, OTC:MGVMF) has strong potential to boost resources at its flagship Cue Gold Project after returning shallow bonanza-grade results of up 15 metres at 111.6 g/t gold from 25 metres, including 5 metres at 313.4 g/t outside the existing resource at Break of Day deposit
The latest assay results from regional drilling and hole 21MORC232 in particular, reveal further high-grade gold and potential new lodes at the project in Western Australia’s Murchison District with a positive response from investors driving shares higher.
An expansive program of works is underway at several sites in the district, following successful RC drilling of new targets along strike from the Break of Day discovery with four potential new lodes revealed.
Break of Day is one of the highest-grade undeveloped gold deposits in Australia and hosts a resource of 797,000 tonnes at 10.2 g/t gold for 262,000 ounces and this is part of the Cue project's overall resource of 6.4 million tonnes at 3.2 g/t for 659,000 ounces.
"Lot more gold to be found"
“Drill hole 21MORC232 has a fantastic new high-grade result and has potentially identified two new lodes in close proximity to Break of Day," Musgrave managing director Rob Waugh said.
“It supports our view that there is a lot more gold to be found at Cue. We currently only have a few drill holes testing these new lodes with further drilling planned to commence next week.
"The very high-grade intersection in 21MORC232 is near-surface and only 80 metres south of White Heat. It remains open to the west and down dip."
Drilling highlights
A new target, around 80 metres south of the company’s White Heat prospect, has intersected two new parallel lodes including the exceptionally high-grade, shallow result in 21MORC232.
Highlights include:
- 15 metres at 111.6 g/t gold from 25 metres in a hanging-wall position, including 5 metres at 313.4 g/t from 26 metres in hole 21MORC232;
- 18 metres at 1.0 g/t from 62 metres in a footwall position in 21MORC232; and
- 1-metre at 28.4 g/t from 76 metres in a footwall position in 21MORC223 and about 20 metres from the footwall intersection in 21MORC232.
Mineralisation is open to the west and down dip and the company expects follow-up drilling to commence next week.
Assays from further drilling at Big Sky, Target 14 and the EVN JV are expected in December.
“All of these new gold intersections are outside the current mineral resource estimates for Cue," Waugh said.
“We are expecting two additional drill rigs to arrive on-site over the next week with a focus on growing the resource base and maintaining a pipeline of prospects for resource definition.”
There was a strong response from investors with shares as much as 18% higher to A$0.395 on volume of more than 8.3 million while the company's market cap before opening was approximately A$180 million.
Prospect and drill hole location plan.
New gold lodes
A regional reverse circulation (RC) drilling program across 12 separate targets is underway to test for further high-grade analogue lodes similar to the company’s Starlight lode. Four potentially significant new zones of interest were intersected that may represent new lodes. All have very limited drill testing to date and remain open.
Drilling to the south of White Heat intersected two new mineralised positions around 80 metres south of White Heat and 380 metres south of Break of Day. Both new lodes remain open to the west and down dip.
Drilling 250 metres north of Break of Day intersected another potential new zone with two separate mineralised lodes. Only one drill hole has tested this position and it remains open to the east, west and down dip.
Drilling results include:
- 1-metre at 16.5 g/t gold from 73 metres; and
- 1-metre at 14.4 g/t from 90 metres.
Follow-up RC drilling on both new target areas starts next week.
White Heat Prospect
RC drilling at White Heat, 300 metres south of Break of Day, has returned further gold intersections down plunge and along strike of the previous mineralisation.
New intercepts include:
- 1-metre at 7.4 g/t from 175 metres in 21MORC222, mineralisation remains open down plunge;
- 1-metre at 21.8 g/t from 158 metres in 21MORC223, mineralisation remains open down plunge; and
- 3 metres at 3.5 g/t from 23 metres in 21MORC224, mineralisation remains open to the west.
The White Heat mineralisation has a similar strike to the Starlight lode at Break of Day, 400 metres to the north, and is hosted in a basalt package of rocks with what looks to be the same stratigraphy as that hosting Starlight. A leached near-surface zone is present, where gold is depleted in the upper saprolite.
Waiting for the Break of Day
Break of Day deposit is 30 kilometres south of Cue in the Murchison district of Western Australia, only 5 kilometres from the Great Northern Highway and 600 kilometres north of Perth.
The new gold discoveries at White Heat and Big Sky are both outside the existing mineral resource estimates.
Ongoing activities
There is a flurry of activity at Cue at the moment.
RC pre-collars for resource conversion diamond drilling at Break of Day and Lena have commenced, with diamond tails to be completed in the new year. A regional aircore program is scheduled to commence next week to test the southern extension of the prospective West Island dolerite identified on the EVN JV to the north.
The company is continuing with works to progress the pre-feasibility level studies at Break of Day and Lenam, conducting mining studies, environmental monitoring and assessments, metallurgical, processing, design and geotechnical test-work.
Musgrave will soon start follow-up drilling of the new high-grade gold lode south of White Heat. Infill resource definition RC drilling at the Big Sky prospect continues, along with further assays and assay results on first pass broad-spaced RC drill testing at new regional targets east of Break of Day, at the Waratah Prospect, are expected in January.
Assay results from RC drilling at Target 14 are expected in late December.
Diamond drilling is scheduled to begin next week with the aim of delivering a maiden mineral resource estimate in the second quarter of 2022.
Evolution JV
Musgrave is conducting follow-up diamond drilling on Lake Austin in the JV with Evolution Mining to test the basement beneath the new regolith gold mineralisation found during recent aircore drilling at West Island, with further assay results for diamond drill holes at West Island pending.
The aircore drilling program on Lake Austin is complete and assays are pending for further aircore drill holes in the current program.