Doug Bright

Lycaon Resources is a step closer to launching a maiden drill campaign at its fully-owned Stansmore polymetallic play in Western Australia’s prospective West Arunta region after locking in a drilling contractor for the work. The company has appointed Subiaco-based Topdrill just a day after confirming final heritage and works permit approvals, paving the way for it to begin drilling early next month.

South Perth-based mining giant IGO has passed the $350,000 exploration expenditure threshold required for it to grab a 51 per cent slice of Buxton Resources’ promising Copper Wolf project in Arizona. And IGO can now continue on to grab another 19 per cent interest in the joint venture project it shares with Buxton by spending a further $5 million.

In this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the more notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including African Gold’s 33m at 2.4g/t gold at its Didievi project in Cote d’Ivoire. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Nexus Minerals and Great Southern Mining, both from WA’s Goldfields region.

Lycaon Resources has secured its final heritage and program of works approvals to clear the way for drilling at its multi-element Stansmore carbonatite project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region. The heritage clearance survey, which was completed in July, relates to the company’s three priority Stansmore, Volt and Ions targets where it is chasing niobium, rare earths and iron oxide copper-gold.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is spreading its exploration wings at its Pinjin project in WA to test new targets next to existing prospects in the southern part of the area’s prospective Laverton Tectonic Zone. The company has lined up air-core drilling at two targets named Kirgella East and Kirgella West, which are respectively centred 1200m north-east and north-west from its combined Kirgella Gift and Providence prospects.

Buxton Resources has secured heritage clearance to drill up to 10 holes at its 80sq-km Centurion project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region in its search for major iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) targets. The principal target is defined by partly-coincident magnetic and gravity geophysical anomalies spanning a surface area measuring about 3500m by 5000m and reporting a 1500 nanoTesla magnetic response and 10.1 milligal gravity response.

Meeka Metals has confirmed its newly-acquired 750kW ball mill is now en route to its new home as a key component of the company’s expanded Murchison processing plant near Meekatharra in WA. The “Outokumpu” mill is slated to increase plant processing capacity to 640ktpa – a 30 per cent increase on the throughput of the 500kW mill that was included in a DFS in May.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has revealed thick new gold intercepts that extend mineralisation to 2km of strike at the Wessex prospect within its Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Results from a recent aircore campaign include 4m going 2.06g/t gold with 3m at 2.69g/t and hits of 4m at 2.37g/t and 4m at 1.72g/t within longer primary intercepts.

Meeka Metals says recent metallurgical results from its Meekatharra project in Western Australia, including 95.5 per cent gold leach recovery, will allow the inclusion of its Turnberry underground resource into a looming DFS. The testwork explored conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) recoveries at three grind sizes and gravity recovery at two grind sizes, reporting optimal recoveries at 106 microns for both methods.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Barton Gold’s 7m at 9.63g/t gold from 67m at its Tarcoola project in South Australia. We also take a look at other interesting drill hits reported from American Rare Earths’ Cowboy State Mine project in the US and Lunnon Metals’ Kambalda play in WA.

Reach Resources has launched its maiden reverse-circulation drilling program at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne to probe fresh niobium and rare earths targets. Intriguing and anomalous results previously taken from 74 surface samples during the company’s latest mapping and sampling program set the train in motion and the drill rig is now poised to test what lies beneath.

Buxton Resources drilling at its Narryer project in WA’s Murchison region has intercepted 20m at a grade of 9.06 per cent total graphitic carbon in a 60m thick zone, indicating a possible new graphite province. The discovery, accompanied by recently-acquired electromagnetic (EM) signatures, indicates the existence of near-surface graphite which may have unveiled a new graphite province within the company’s ground.

GreenTech Metals has ramped up the copper-zinc-gold hunt at its Whundo project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region after appointing experienced mining executive Julian Hanna as a technical advisor. The company says Hanna will bring 35 years’ worth of experience in the discovery, early development stages and corporate management of significant copper, nickel and gold deposits and their associated companies.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Global Uranium’s hits up to 5387ppm uranium oxide in Colorado. We also take a look at other interesting drill hits as reported by Superior Resources from its Steam Engine gold project in Queensland and Great Boulder Resources from its Mulga Bill gold prospect in WA.

Aguia Resources has reinterpreted its high-grade, polymetallic gold-copper-silver-zinc El Dovio play in Colombia as an orogenic lode gold-silver style of mineralisation that was followed later by copper and zinc. The company’s new designation contrasts sharply with its previous casting as a volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide (VMS/VHMS) deposit and indicates that the base metal component results from emplacement during later tectonic processes.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has kicked off a high-resolution aeromagnetic geophysical survey in the northern half of its Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Western Australia’s important mining centre of Kalgoorlie. The survey will provide modern quality data with significantly better resolution than is currently available for the northern part of the project that covers the prospective Jungle Dam area and southward extensions of the Edjudina Goldfield.

American West Metals has revealed one of the best-ever drill hits at its Storm project in Canada after a hole put in on the south side of the North Graben fault intercepted 22.9m at 8.5 per cent copper. The interval includes semi-massive sulphide zones with individual assays up to 27 per cent copper and importantly, lies outside the Cyclone target’s mineral resource.

Novo Resources has unveiled the conceptual exploration target for its Belltopper gold project in Victoria of between 1.4 and 2.1 million tonnes containing between 320,000 and 570,000 ounces of gold. Belltopper lies in the highly-prospective Bendigo Tectonic Zone, about 52km south along strike from Bendigo and 15km south-east of Castlemaine – areas that have produced about 22.4 and 5.6 million ounces of gold, respectively.

Aruma Resources has kicked off ground gravity and induced-polarisation geophysical surveys at its Fiery Creek project near Mount Isa in Queensland to test areas of outcropping copper and identify drill targets. The detailed geophysics are part of Aruma’s new mission to acquire data of sufficient quality and resolution to enable prospect-scale drill-targeting, which had not been possible with previous geophysical data over the area.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Mithril Silver and Gold’s 33m at 31.8g/t gold and 274g/t silver at its Mexican project. We also look at other interesting drill hits as reported by Flynn Gold from its Trafalgar zone and from Patronus Resources’ Cardinia project near Leonora in Western Australia.

American West Metals has discovered thick high-grade copper assaying up to 3.7 per cent from deep diamond drilling at the Cyclone deposit within its Storm project in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, indicating a big mineralised system. The discovery hole was collared about 110m south of the North Graben Fault that cuts off the south side of the Cyclone target.

GreenTech Metals has intersected thick copper-zinc zones below six shoots during a new 1743m drilling program, indicating significant resource expansion potential at its Whundo project in WA’s Pilbara region. The campaign was designed to drill-test underexplored mineralisation along a 2.1km-long string of targets at Whundo and was followed up by DHEM surveys on selected holes in a bid to identify new copper-zinc mineralised zones.

Javelin Minerals’ reinterpretation of data from its Coogee project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region has thrown up a tantalising exploration theory that it is now primed to test with the drill bit. The company plans to determine if a magnetic anomaly lurking just 300m from an old open pit at the site is a potential repetition of the historic lode.

Aurum Resources has scored extensive gold grabs reading up to 11.46m at 6.67g/t in four diamond drillholes during a second campaign at the BM Target 1 within its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire. The program entailed five diamond drillholes for 914.5m and delivered a crop of broad, shallow medium to high-grade gold hits, with responses indicating mineralisation remains open along strike and down-dip.

Surefire Resources is following up newly-found base metals soil anomalism at its Yidby East gold project in WA’s Mid West region, with renewed exploration set to test for possible Golden Grove-style deposit analogues. The broad-scale anomalous copper-zinc was identified at the company’s Phat Boy target, about 50km from 29Metals’ renowned Golden Grove copper-lead-zinc-gold-silver operation and other nearby volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide deposits in the same belt.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Solstice Minerals’ solid gold reveal after air-core drilling in WA. We also take a look at drill hits from last week as reported by Peel Mining from its Cobar South projects in NSW, Sun Silver in Nevada and Cauldron Energy in WA’s North West.

Thunderbird Resources is homing in on evidence of uranium mineralisation after drilling significant hydrothermal alteration and detecting radioactivity at its Hidden Bay project in Canada’s prolific Athabasca Basin. The maiden four-hole drilling campaign was designed primarily to test possible basement-hosted uranium targets close to the Athabasca Basin unconformity and the company now believes it may be close to unveiling a uranium mineralising system.

ABx Group’s innovative work in exploring, drilling and processing ionic-adsorption clay rare earths deposits in Tasmania last year has been rewarded with a Federal Government rebate of more than $437,000. The timely cash injection comes less than a month after the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary ALCORE received a similarly-sized rebate for its work on a process to recover and recycle waste aluminium fluoride.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including WIA Gold’s 4m at 87.43g/t gold from 79m at its Bouaflé project in Côte d’Ivoire. We also take a look at other interesting drill hits by Turaco Gold from its Côte d’Ivoire deposit and PolarX from its copper project in Alaska.

Aurum Resources has cemented a 51 per cent foothold on the BM joint venture within its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire after completing more than 8000m of diamond drilling at the West African site. The company can now secure up to 80 per cent of the BM operation it shares with Minex West Africa by hitting further exploration milestones.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has completed follow-up air-core drilling on thick gold intercepts from its Pinjin project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region as part of a mission to expand its promising Wessex target, just 650m south-west of Hawthorn Resources’ Anglo-Saxon pit. In a further extension to its latest campaign, the company also put 25 holes into its Kirgella Gift North and Providence West zones.

Surefire Resources’ soil sampling at its Yidby East gold project in Western Australia’s Mid West region has identified anomalous base metals similar to of the nearby Golden Grove style of volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) deposit. The company’s Phat Boy target sits about 50km south/south-east of 29Metals’ world-famous Golden Grove and other nearby VHMS deposits in the same belt.