ASX-listed junior gold and base metals explorer Godolphin Resources has uncovered a trio of new gold prospects at its Lewis Ponds polymetallic project 15km east of Orange in NSW following a review of past exploration data generated by extensive rock chip and soil geochemical sampling. The Orange-based company says the newly identified potential drill-ready targets – Williams, Mt Lindsay and Mt Shorter – sit outside the current limits of the recently remodelled Lewis Ponds mineral resource.
Godolphin’s Lewis Ponds exploration licence area in the venerated Lachlan Fold Belt region includes its Lewis Ponds resource.
The latest mineral resource estimate for Lewis Ponds stands at an inferred 6.2 million tonnes weighing in at grades averaging 2 grams per tonne gold, 80 g/t silver, 2.7 per cent zinc, 1.6 per cent lead and 0.2 per cent copper.
Corresponding contained metal totals for the resource are 398,000 ounces of gold, 15.9 million ounces of silver, 170,000 tonnes of zinc, 99,000 tonnes of lead and 11,000 tonnes of copper.
A program of reverse circulation drilling vectoring in on the Quarry lodes at Lewis Ponds is set to kick off this week.
Godolphin says the review of the historical exploration results from the Williams prospect about 3km south-east of Lewis Ponds turned up rock chip values as high as 12.65 g/t gold.
Williams displays multi-element anomalies in the rock chip and soil geochemistry and the geochemical signature of its soils is similar to the Lewis Ponds area, according to the company.
The prospect is interpreted to be associated with a one kilometre long by 250m wide copper, zinc, lead and silver soil anomaly and remains open along strike.
Old soil samples from Williams were only assayed for copper, lead and zinc due to it being considered a volcanic-hosted massive sulphide target only, as was the case previously with Lewis Ponds, according to Godolphin.
After trawling through a poultice of historical drilling and rock chip and soil geochemical sampling data, the company says it recognised several anomalies may be prospective for gold mineralisation.
Mineralised zones encountered in historical work over the Williams prospect have been described as largely occurring in strata-bound veins and stacked semi-massive sulphide lenses.
Williams is perched within a regional magnetic low feature, which the company says shares similarities with Lewis Ponds and also the magnetic setting of Regis Resources’ McPhillamys open-pittable gold deposit about 20km south along strike.
At Lewis Ponds, higher-grade gold mineralisation in historical drill core correlates well with surface soil gold anomalies, Godolphin has observed.
The presence of high-grade gold in rock chips and the lack of gold analysis from the Williams historic soil samples point to the likelihood that Williams also harbours gold mineralisation, the company suggests.
Godolphin intends undertaking a soil sampling grid across Williams that will be used to verify the presence of gold anomalism at surface and assist in drill hole designs.
At Mt Shorter within the Lewis Ponds project area, previous rock chip samples coughed up gold values of up to 10.3 g/t.
Mt Shorter was historically mined mainly for zinc and lead and neighbouring Mt Lindsay for copper.
Lewis Ponds takes in multiple historical mining sites and mineral occurrences that have the same north-west-south-east structural trend as the Lewis Ponds resource that may indicate the same controls on mineralisation at the new target areas.
Godolphin Resources Managing Director Jeneta Owens said: “The Godolphin team in Orange have been busy identifying future drill targets from reviewing existing rock chip and soil geochemical data in EL8556 outside of the immediate area of the Lewis Ponds mineral resource, which significantly adds to the great potential of the overall Lewis Ponds project.”
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By Matt Birney
