Medallion Metals Ltd (ASX:MM8)'s first diamond drill hole at Meridian prospect within the Ravensthorpe Gold Project (RGP) in Western Australia has hit 4.6 metres of mineralisation.
The company used downhole electromagnetic surveying (DHEM) to predict the find, and this validates the view that the technology is a highly effective means of predicting gold success at the project.
“For the first hole to generate an intersection containing significant massive sulphides validates DHEM as an effective targeting tool at Meridian, which greatly enhances our confidence and ability to be predictive," managing director Paul Bennett said.
Meridian is 4 kilometres west of Ravensthorpe town site and 21 kilometres along strike from the Kundip Mining Centre, which hosts the company’s current JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate of 674,000 ounces at 2.4 g/t gold.
Drilling and DHEM at Meridian
Medallion completed a first pass reverse circulation (RC) drill program at Meridian last year, which consisted of 11 holes for 1,224 metres.
The drilling confirmed the presence of a mineralised system over at least a 700-metre strike length, which was open in all directions.
Highlights from this program included 5 metres at 11.4 g/t gold, 0.16% copper and 1.4 g/t silver from 32 metres; 2 metres at 6.1 g/t gold, 0.15% copper and 1.9 g/t silver from 125 metres and 4 metres at 2.9 g/t gold, 0.04% copper and 0.1 g/t silver from 58 metres.
Watch: Medallion Metals to drill highly prospective meridian target following massive sulphide find
District-scale opportunity
Following the RC drilling campaign, three drill holes were surveyed by DHEM, with modelling indicating that the conductor plates may represent massive sulphide lodes within the northeast-southwest Meridian mineralised structure.
“This is an outstanding result and full credit to the project team who have stuck to a process they believed in and have undertaken some outstanding exploration work,” Bennett said.
"Importantly, Meridian has been extended at depth building confidence it’s a mineralised system with scale. Its location 21 kilometres along strike from Kundip underlines the district-scale opportunity Medallion’s dominant ground holding represents.”
Next steps
The results from the hole will be logged and processed, with samples sent off for assay – they should be back in April. The next planned hole will test another DHEM conductor.
Medallion has three drill rigs on site at RGP. One RC rig and one diamond drill rig apiece are working on follow-up drilling at Meridian – a total of 16 holes for 2,210 metres of combined drilling.
Assays are currently pending on 31 holes.