Godolphin Resources is punching 700 metres of diamond drilling into its 100 per cent owned Gundagai South Gold Project in NSW where it is targeting sheeted quartz veins and porphyry dykes at its Surprise Hill North and Big Ben prospects.
The company is restarting operations at the Gundagai North and Gundagai South projects after unseasonable adverse weather events across NSW called a halt to exploration in late 2021.
The new diamond drilling program includes an initial 500m hole at the Surprise Hill North project specifically to test an area of multiple porphyry dykes and a 200m hole at Big Ben to test gold bearing sheeted quartz veins within a quartz feldspar porphyry that has been exposed in a nearby quarry.
Interestingly, a mapping campaign in October 2021 identified the sheeted quartz vein sets were in a different orientation to what had been previously interpreted and therefore had not been intersected by previous drilling.
The company said drilling will be completed towards the end of January with assay results expected in the second quarter of 2022.
The company’s 100 per cent owned Gundagai projects, located in the southern region of the Lachlan Fold Belt, encompasses the Gundagai township that boasts a history of high-grade gold mining.
Notably, Godolphin’s ground contains a suite of historic gold and base metals operations that sit in a belt of basaltic rocks that have been intruded by quartz-porphyry dykes.
Godolphin Resources Managing Director, Jeneta Owens said: “With improved weather conditions we have now been able to safely mobilise the drill rig and continue our planned exploration activities at Gundagai South.
“The two-hole program will allow us to gain a better understanding of the local geology and plan for additional initiatives once assay results have been received. We look forward to providing updates as the drilling continues and assays results are received over the coming months.”
Approximately 200 kilometres north of its Gundagai prospects, at the Lewis Ponds project, Godolphin has been appraising previously overlooked polymetallic and gold mineralisation through a re-interpretation of soil samples.
Management said the work has led to the identification of additional gold with coincident copper, barium, bismuth, molybdenum, tellurium and lead, all situated south of its main mineral resource.
The NSW-focused gold explorer says the geochemical characteristics of its re-interpretated soil samples are similar to ASX-listed Regis Resources’ two-million-ounce McPhillamys gold deposit located about 30km away. The $1.5 billion market capped Regis’s asset is considered one of Australia’s larger underdeveloped open-pit gold resources.
Elsewhere at the company’s nearby Williams prospect, Godolphin recently collected about half of a 200-piece soil sampling program targeting extensions south-east of its Lewis Ponds project.
As Godolphin restarts its drilling program in the historic mineral rich area, it will no doubt be hoping its results can emulate some of the rich discoveries that have been made in the Gundagai region over the years.
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