Gascoyne Resources Ltd (ASX:GCY) has discovered a new area of “extensive mineralisation” at the Dalgaranga Gold Project, 65 kilometres northwest of Mt Magnet in the Murchison gold mining region of Western Australia.
The new area is immediately north of the main Gilbey’s open pit at the project.
Gascoyne Resources managing director and CEO Simon Lawson said: “This is an exciting early breakthrough for our team, which strongly vindicates our two-pronged approach of optimising our operations by targeting higher-grade ore sources while in parallel aggressively working to unlock what we believe to be the significant untapped potential in the near-mine environment.”
Shares have been as much as 9.5% higher this morning to $0.29.
Shallow gold
Shallow reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the site uncovered mineralisation at 17 of 21 drill holes from 1-metre below the surface, across zones up to 18 metres wide and down to 53 metres below surface, in a structural corridor directly along strike from Gilbey’s pit, with the closest drill hole only 140 metres from the mining front.
The company is confident of consistent mineralisation at multiple stacked zones over a 300-metre north-south corridor.
Cross-section of the new Gilbey's North prospect
Highlights include:
- 10 metres at 1.8 g/t gold from 12 metres, including 4 metres at 3.2 g/t from 14 metres;
- 3 metres at 3.4 g/t from 35 metres, 4 metres at 1.6 g/t from 42 metres and 2 metres at 2.5 g/t from 51 metres;
- 5 metres at 3.6 g/t from 13 metres; and
- 8 metres at 1.6 g/t from 26 metres.
Consistent with Gilbey’s pit
Gascoyne is also eager to receive assay results from a deeper stratigraphic diamond hole drilled beneath the newly defined Gilbey’s North target. The drilling hit the projected down-dip extension of the mineralisation 140 metres along strike from 159 to 180 metres down-hole.
The hole confirms a stratigraphy and mineralisation style identical to that seen in the main Gilbey’s Pit to the south.
“Intersecting strong gold mineralisation from just 140 metres north of the operating Gilbey’s open pit is a really exciting development, particularly as the new Gilbey’s North zone appears to have considerable depth and strike extent,” Lawson said.
5,000-metre campaign
“We now have an RC rig on site completing a 5,000-metre program to infill and extend the mineralisation, and we are really looking forward to seeing what it can deliver,” said Lawson.
“Our objective will be to advance this new discovery as quickly as possible to resource status so we can get the engineers working on potential mine plans to bring it into our production schedule.
“We have also been able to post a record month of gold production from Dalgaranga in January, with 7,900 ounces of reconciled production for the month. That is a great result, which shows that the improving production trend seen in the December quarter is continuing.”
Drilling is now underway about 50 metres from the Gilbey’s Open Pit high wall.