Aruma kicks off maiden drill program in WA gold quest

Aruma Resources has unleashed its drill rig for a maiden 26-hole RC program at the company’s Melrose gold project in WA’s Pilbara region as it looks to probe coincident geochemical and structural targets backed by historical gold hits. The first pass drill test will consist of about 3000m of drilling across the project’s Gossan Hill prospect and is expected to take two weeks to complete.

The targets are located on the western side of the prospect and are surrounded by historical hits including 27m at 0.3 grams per tonne gold from surface, 1m at 1.44 g/t within a 18m strike going 0.26 g/t from 63m and 1m at 2.74 g/t within an 11m intercept at 0.42 g/t from 8m.

Notably, the targets are wrapped up within a surface geochemical gold anomaly of 50 parts per billion that is also interpreted to lie within a structural setting similar to the nearby Paulsens gold mine just 5km to the south. In June this year ASX-listed Black Cat Syndicate acquired the historical producing mine from Northern Star Resources that managed to squeeze out 900,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 7.3 g/t before mothballing it in 2017.

The drilling aims to define gold grades and controls on mineralisation in addition to basic geological information. The initial program’s 26 holes will be drilled across five lines down to depths of about 100m, however the program may be extended to up to 50 holes across 10 lines depending on the results.

Aruma Resources Managing Director, Peter Schwann said: “The significant historic gold grades over very wide intercepts at Gossan Hill are consistent with the wide carbonate halo around the richer sulphide cores of these types of deposits. This is interpreted to fit exactly with the Aruma exploration model, and the style and host rocks at the rich mineralisation at the nearby Paulsens Project.”

Aruma’s 381-square-kilometre Melrose gold project consists of 14 tenements surrounding the Paulsens gold mine and its Gossan Hill prospect comes from just one of those tenements. The company believes there is a number of regional-scale structures similar to Gossan Hill occurring in the area that may represent attractive targets for gold exploration.

Whilst Aruma holds a handful of other gold projects in its portfolio it also has hedged itself with a small lithium project 9km south of Norseman where the explorer just kicked off another drill program last week. The project is interpreted to lie within a lithium corridor that contains ASX-listed Mineral Resources’ Mt Marion lithium mine of 51 million tonnes at 1.45 per cent lithium oxide and Liontown Resources’ Buldania resource of 15 million tonnes at 1.0 per cent lithium oxide. In terms of private assets, the corridor is also home to the Bald Hill lithium mine of 26.5 million tonnes at 1.0 per cent lithium oxide — held by Alliance Mineral Assets.

The market could be in for a heavy flow of news from Aruma Resources in the coming months with two drill bits spinning on either side of WA.

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