Aruma Resources has racked up an intriguingly wide, shallow, albeit low grade gold intercept during first pass greenfields drilling at its Salmon Gums gold project approximately 200km south of Kalgoorlie in WA. The new target gave up 38 metres at 0.12 g/t gold from 23m downhole in a sparsely explored area just 30 kilometres along strike and in the same stratigraphy as Pantoro Limited’s high grade Scotia gold project.
The maiden drill program at Salmon Gums consisted of 2,298m of RC drilling for a total of 33 holes. Drillholes primarily targeted wide-spaced magnetic anomalies in the south of the project area with 15 of the holes on a narrower spacing designed to zero in on historic anomalous intersections including a 7m section at 2.71 g/t gold.
Assays have been received from 21 of the 33 holes drilled that the company says reinforce its exploration model based around exploring the potential presence of a large gold system following the thick, low-grade hits intersected.
Although the grade is of a relatively low tenor, the wide intercept is encouraging as it may potentially point to a much larger system at play according to the company. Aruma says the talc-chlorite shears and quartz veining intersected in recent drilling may just be the outer alteration halo around a primary higher-grade ore source nearby.
Now that the company knows thick mineralisation exists in the area it has commenced a follow-up 5,000m RC drill campaign in around 50 holes to attempt to locate the primary source of mineralisation.
Recent drilling intersected gold grades greater than 0.1 g/t gold in 15 of the 21 drillholes received to date providing the company with ample encouragement given the greenfield nature of the program. The highest result from recent results graded 0.21 g/t gold over a one metre interval.
Anomalous results within the Salmon Gums project showing greater than 1 gram-metre intersections have defined a broad anomalous zone that strikes 2.3 kilometres in a south-southwest direction from its Thistle prospect. Importantly the gold results display a mineralised parcel ranging in thickness from 100 to 200m highlighting the potential scale of the gold system across the Salmon Gus project area.
Due to the reactive sediment style of mineralisation Aruma is chasing at Salmon Gums it has managed to secure a healthy 43 per cent rebate for drilling costs from the government under its research and development grant.
Aruma Resources Managing Director, Peter Schwann said: “The drill programs were designed to regionally test the gold anomalies and geophysical targets to find large scale trends for follow-up gold exploration.
“These initial results are broadly consistent with our expectations from our models and the historic exploration. These observations support the reactive sediment model, and confirm the geophysical and historic data, which will generate our next phase of drilling. The Company has access on several new targets it plans to test in drilling which commenced this month.”
Some results have also been received from phase two drilling at the company’s Saltwater project in the Pilbara that consisted of 1,872m of RC drilling for a total of 20 holes. Assays have been received for 7 of the holes and show relatively low gold grades that the company says requires further modelling and interpretation.
Whilst drilling hammers away at Salmon Gums, a drill rig is set to commence drilling at Aruma’s Mt Dean lithium project situated 10km south of the mining town of Norseman. The rig is expected to arrive on site in February 2022 to kick off a 3,000m RC drill program.
A heritage agreement has also been approved at the company’s Melrose gold project and a program of works has now been submitted for the first phase of drilling.
It is somewhat rare for a greenfields drill program to hit the motherload straight off the bat. In many instances explorers find a gold sniff that allows them to vector in on a greater prize nearby and it looks like Aruma has found itself a wide gold sniff that is begging for follow up.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
