Dampier Gold’s gamble to refocus its exploration onto the Zuleika Shear, north-west of Kalgoorlie in WA, looks to be paying off with the company hitting paydirt with recent aircore over the Paradigm East prospect. Shallow drilling has hit high-grade gold mineralisation at the prospect returning an impressive 24m at 6.39 g/t gold including a stellar 4m at 34.74 g/t gold from only 28m down-hole.
These high-grade results come hot on the heels on the company’s recent discovery of the Browns Dam gold prospect, less than 3km to the north-east of the Paradigm target, confirming the prospectivity of the Dampier’s ground holding in this auriferous terrane and validating the company’s exploration strategy in the region.
Dampier Gold's Managing Director, Annie Guo said:
“Our latest successful exploration results have vindicated Dampier's strategy of maintaining an aggressive drilling campaign in parallel with our technical team’s increasing understanding of the mineralised systems within the project area.”
“We have hit more high-grade mineralisation in previously untested areas. These results extend the known limits of mineralisation. This points to a larger mineralised envelope which in turn will give greater scale to the project.”
The company’s Zuleika gold project lies 30km to the west-northwest of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The project covers more than 220 square kilometres of this prime exploration terrane, which it shares with a roster of mining heavyweights including Northern Star, Evolution Mining and Zijin Mining Group.
The mines and resources along the Zuleika Shear boast a tremendous endowment of gold, estimated at more 20 million ounces. This positions Zuleika as one of the richest gold mining regions in Australia, providing a significant incentive for exploration along this remarkable geological structure, and its interpreted ‘mirror’, the parallel and underexplored Carnage Shear.
Dampier’s tenure covers more than 20km of strike along the fertile Zuleika and Carnage Shears, including the north-western strike extensions of the 7 million-ounce Kundana gold mining centre which lies a mere 3km south of the company’s tenement boundary. The company’s evaluation of the Zuleika tenure has identified more than 40 targets requiring evaluation and testing - an enviable line-up for any budding gold explorer.
Ms Guo said:
“Dampier’s Zuleika project represents an extensive land holding covering significant regional structures including the world-class Zuleika Shear. With more than 40 targets including drill ready prioritised targets such as Paradigm East, Browns Dam and Castle Hill East, we are exploring in one of richest gold regions in the world, demonstrated by multiple mines along the Zuleika Shear and on parallel and cross cutting structures. The Paradigm East zone has a significant long footprint of over 700m, and the confirmation of a high-grade zone is highly encouraging.”
The Paradigm East prospect sits in the north of Dampier’s project area located just 1.5km east along the gold-bearing structure that hosts Northern Star’s high-grade Paradigm open pit and underground resource. Northern Star’s Paradigm deposit boasts a resource of over 187,000 ounces of gold at a healthy 6.7 g/t gold and is the subject of an ongoing evaluation as the world-class gold miner weighs up development options for its quiver of gold deposits in the region.
Dampier’s exploration program is aimed at building on the success of the miners with which it shares the region, including Northern Star. The latest drill program at Paradigm East follows up on previous aircore and reverse circulation drilling which has produced a number of high-grade intercepts including 7m at 9.8 g/t gold also hosting 2m at close to an ounce per tonne from only 42m depth.
The phase two aircore drilling program at Paradigm East consisted of 21 drill holes extending the mineralised zone at the prospect to in excess of 700m of strike. Drilling has returned a solid number of intercepts including the aforementioned 24m intercept and a further 8m at 2.2 g/t gold, including 4m at 3.3 g/t gold from 48m depth, 200m to the east.
Whilst the focus of drilling at Paradigm East has been on the western end of the prospect, the current program points to the greater potential of the target which appears open along strike and at depth. These open target areas present a wealth of possibilities to Dampier as it plans follow up drilling at the developing prospect area.
Ms Guo said:
“The success at Paradigm East enforces the significant potential of Dampier’s asset portfolio and together with the technical ability of its committed team, Dampier is on track with its focus of rapidly defining JORC Resources at its Zuleika project area which forms part of our Menzies/Kalgoorlie exploration strategy.”
With Dampier having only recently joined the party at the multi-million ounce Kalgoorlie terrane, the company is showing an appetite for real estate in the region and appears set to make waves as it ramps up its exploration across the Zuleika Shear and nearby Goongarrie and Credo project areas.
Next cab off the rank looks to be the Menzies project where the company has recently finalised its maiden exploration program. With results expected in the coming weeks, Dampier’s strategy appears to be paying dividends in its move on the golden Zuleika Shear and beyond.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
