Carnavale Resources Ltd (ASX:CAV) has kicked off a 5,000-metre reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at newly discovered, shallow, high-grade gold lodes at the Kookynie Gold Project, including the McTavish East prospect targeting extensions to the high-grade zone along strike and at depth.
The RC program will also follow up on the previous high-grade aircore results at McTavish North.
A separate aircore drilling program is planned to expand the high-grade McTavish East discovery along the 1-kilometre-long prospective structure between McTavish East and Champion South, during the second quarter of 2022.
Grow bonanza-grade gold discovery
Carnavale CEO Humphrey Hale said: “CAV has been quick to return to Kookynie to follow up on the impressive high-grade gold identified in the first RC program at McTavish East.
“The follow-up RC drilling is planned to grow this bonanza-grade gold discovery and test other targets."
Initial RC program
The initial RC program at McTavish East prospect extended the high-grade gold mineralisation encountered in the previous aircore programs into the fresh rock.
This RC drilling focused on this prospect, which hosts the highest gold grades in the project area at present.
CAV’s McTavish East prospect is east of Nex Metals Explorations Ltd (ASX:NME) and Metalicity Ltd (ASX:MCT)’s McTavish high-grade gold deposit.
The newly identified mineralised structure identified by recent CAV aircore and RC drilling has high-grade gold defined along 250 metres of strike and dips steeply east and strikes northeast and remains open.
Current drilling
The current RC drilling program is designed to expand the substantial high-grade gold mineralisation associated with strong quartz veining in fresh rock, identified by the previous RC drilling.
It is aimed at expanding and targeting the thickest zones of high-grade mineralisation within the main structure that appear to have a southeasterly plunge.
In addition, CAV will explore the shallow high-grade gold identified in earlier CAV aircore at McTavish North.
The large-scale mineralised structure identified in the RC drilling that hosts McTavish East strikes northeast across CAV’s tenement package and intersects the Champion South Prospect.
This represents a 1.1 kilometres priority target corridor that is untested by previous drilling due to the presence of the depletion zone in the regolith profile.
CAV has an aircore program planned for the second quarter of 2022 to test this highly prospective corridor for repeat high-grade structures.