Alice Queen Ltd (ASX:AQX) has turned back time in its latest exploration campaign, unearthing gold in material that was mined 40 years ago at the Horn Island Project in Queensland’s Torres Strait.
The precious metals explorer recently drilled 51 reverse circulation (RC) drill holes, covering 1,038 metres, to examine the gold profile of Horn Island’s legacy stockpiles.
Assays were received late last month, and they prove all stockpiles returned intersections greater than 0.4 g/t gold.
The results are in
The best gold assays include:
- 16 metres at 1.0 g/t gold from 4 metres, including 4 metres at 3.2 g/t from 14 metres;
- 5 metres at 1.5 g/t from 7 metres, including 2 metres at 2.5 g/t from 8 metres;
- 3 metres at 1.6 g/t from 0 metres, including 1 metre at 3.6 g/t from 1 metre;
- 8 metres at 1.0 g/t from 2 metres, including 2 metres at 1.4 g/t from 3 metres, including 2 metres at 1.5 g/t from 7 metres;
- 5 metres at 1.4 g/t from 0 metres, including 1 metre at 4.5 g/t from 0 metres; and
- 6 metres at 0.8 g/t from 0 metres, including 2 metres at 1.1 g/t from 1 metre.
What’s more, Alice Queen hit limited gold intersections among the surface and basement rocks underlying the stockpile heaps.
Highlights include:
- 4 metres at 0.5g/t gold from 3 metres;
- 2 metres at 0.5 g/t from 6 metres;
- 1 metre at 0.6 g/t from 15 metres;
- 3 metres at 0.8 g/t from 6 metres, including 1 metre at 1.7 g/t from 6 metres; and
- 2 metres at 0.4 g/t from 9 metres.
“Positive gold results from all tested stockpiles”
Speaking to the findings, Alice Queen managing director Andrew Buxton said: “There are several legacy stockpiles at Horn Island that contain mined material from the historic 1980s operation.
“From previous grab samples, we are aware that ore is present amongst this material.
“A limited RC program was designed to test the profile of these legacy stockpiles and it is very encouraging that this program returned positive gold results from all tested stockpiles and may, in the future with further work, provide additional value to a mining operation at Horn Island.”
Alice Queen’s latest expedition covered several sites at Horn Island, including low-grade stockpiles, the property’s bund walls, any run of mine areas and the project’s waste dump.
They may be early findings, but Alice Queen believes the consistency of low-grade gold findings is a promising sign of Horn Island’s prospects.