Alchemy Resources Ltd (ASX:ALY)’s final assays have outlined a large north-south trending geochemical anomaly to the east of the existing mining operations at Aldiss, along the Karonie East corridor in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields.
The large geochemical footprint stretches over two areas of around 950 metres strike in the north and 4,300 metres strike in the south adjacent to areas of historic drilling, which failed to reach basement rocks or to penetrate the younger cover.
This newly defined system is to the east of Silver Lake Resources Ltd’s Harkonnen target, which displays similar characteristics and is defined by a low-grade footprint of >100-200ppb gold over a 5-kilometre strike length.
Watch: Alchemy Resources gold assays from aircore drilling at Karonie East reveal "a lot to chase up"
Key target for follow-up drilling
Alchemy Resources chief executive officer James Wilson said: “The drill program has intersected numerous zones of mineralisation close to areas that were previously drilled on wide-spaced RAB lines, which failed to penetrate the near-surface cover.
“Importantly with our recent drilling, the new mineralised intercepts were logged in saprolite, so we haven’t tested the primary bedrock zone of mineralisation from these areas.
"This will be a key target in follow-up drilling later this quarter.”
Results
Phase 2 of the aircore drill program was focused on Karonie East target area as a priority after the high-resolution magnetics flown in 2021 pinpointed multiple high tenor structures in proximity to the existing deposits and open pits at the adjacent Aldiss mining operations operated by Silver Lake.
The program aimed to test the 10 kilometres and consisted of 112 holes for a total of 6,357 metres of drilling. It was split into two zones, in the north and south of the trend.
Significant results include:
- 2 metres at 2.7 g/t gold from 48 metres including 1-metre at 3.99 g/t from 48 metres and 1-metre at 1.41 g/t from 49 metres;
- 2 metres at 3.79 g/t from 84 metres including 1-metre at 5.24 g/t from 84 metres and 1-metre at 2.34 g/t from 85 metres); and
- 4 metres at 1.59 g/t from 20 metres (previously reported).
Karonie East northern zone
Holes in this area were designed to test a magnetic feature, which runs along the northern zone over a 2-kilometre strike length.
Alchemy believes a northeast-trending structural dislocation is a key control on mineralisation in the region.
Follow-up reverse circulation (RC) drilling is planned to test the mineralisation at depth and into fresh rock.
Karonie East southern zone
Holes in this area were designed to test a series of magnetic features, which run along the southern zone over a 5-kilometre strike length and returned anomalous results (>0.1g/t gold) over a 4,300 metres strike extent.
Alchemy considers the Southern zone an important and high priority target, which has been overlooked by previous explorers.
Current drill line spacing is between 300-600 metres, which is not adequate to test the short strike length, with infill aircore drilling proposed.
Planning for follow-up RC drilling to test the mineralised intercepts at depth is also underway.
Next steps
An interpretation of the drill results is underway and follow-up aircore and RC drill planning has commenced.
Bottom of hole multi-element geochemistry assays area awaited and are an important vector for pathfinder anomalism.
Drill testing is planned and will coincide with the Phase 3 drill program to test the Gilmore targets in the second quarter of 2022.