Meeka Gold Ltd (ASX:MEK) traded higher after receiving strong results of up to 20 metres at 4.66 g/t gold within 36 metres at 2.69 g/t from 12 metres at Circle Valley Project in the Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt of Western Australia.
The assays from two reverse circulation (RC) holes drilled in early January have also returned 8 metres at 0.54 g/t gold from 96 metres.
Circle Valley is a greenfield exploration project 85 kilometres south of Norseman, covering a section of the underexplored Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt.
Shares were as much as 24% higher intraday to $0.052 and are up from $0.036 at the close on January 28.
High-grade results
The result comes on the back of the 2021 reconnaissance aircore drilling campaign which yielded:
- 12 metres at 1.05g/t gold within 23 metres at 0.64 g/t from 12 metres; and
- 4 metres at 1.49 g/t within 24 metres at 0.38 g/t from 12 metres.
Meeka Gold conducted the drilling to test beneath a 1.2-kilometre by 400-metre gold-in-soil anomaly, known as the Anomaly A prospect, with significant strike still to be tested.
Multiple kilometres of magnetic features extending from each of the known primary gold occurrences also remain to be tested.
Since the start of the year the company has been busy at the project, completing 6,000 metres of a planned 7,000-metre aircore program with all aircore assays still to be received and reported.
More drilling to come
More reverse circulation (RC) drilling is in the works to follow the aircore program.
Meeka is keen to progress exploration at the greenfield Circle Valley project. It currently controls 167 square kilometres of unexplored terrain along the Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt, home to the 7.1-million-ounce Tropicana gold deposit.
The company is drilling additional lines of aircore holes to the east and west of the two RC drill holes to confirm the strike of the mineralisation, as well as the position of the mineraliation on the southern side of the fault. Additional drilling will also be needed to confirm the orientation of the mineralisation.
Greenfield opportunity
“The Circle Valley Project is an exciting greenfield exploration opportunity for us," CEO Tim Davidson said.
“We control a significant landholding, which is vastly unexplored yet has shown itself to be fertile for gold in at least two locations, 9 kilometres apart, at the Anomaly A and Fenceline prospects.
“Outside of those two prospects the total historical exploration drilling amounts to only 26 shallow aircore holes across the entirety of our 167-square-kilometre tenure.
The thick zone of gold mineralisation returned from the very first RC hole to be drilled at Anomaly A is a great result and validates the work we have done up until this point.”
The company is waiting on the results from the 6,000 metres of aircore drilling it has conducted since the start of the year, at which point it will have a stronger sense of the position of the mineralisation to guide further exploration.