Great Southern Mining’s aggressive exploration approach at its Southern Star prospect near Laverton appears to be paying off, reinforcing what the company says is shaping up to be a very sizeable gold deposit.
The latest RC drilling program continues to return high-grade hits at the operation in WA’s Goldfields region including one 69m intersection going 1.1 grams per tonne from 39m.
Recent drilling targeted extensions south of the site’s mineralisation with the aim of enhancing grade confidence within the main zones that form part of Great Southern’s Duketon gold project.
The company says the most recent exploration, focused on an “ineffectively explored” area between two high-grade zones, reinforces what is shaping up to be a very sizeable gold deposit with mineralisation open at depth.
The 69m intersection included a higher-grade core of 10m going 3.5 g/t gold including 2m at 12 g/t.
Other highlights show a 13m intersection reading 1.3 g/t from 49m including 2m at 6.9 g/t, whilst another 3m section from the same hole recorded 3.5 g/t gold from 78m.
Great Southern says the drilling shows mineralisation aligns with the potential emergence of a resource development opportunity at Southern Star with plans for high-priority drill targets underway.
Great Southern Mining Executive Chairman, John Terpu said: “The more drilling we do, the more confident we are of this becoming a deposit of substantial size and scale. GSN also have more than 5 kilometres of strike to test, north and south, of the known mineralisation at Southern Star and we see this as the first of potentially several deposits to be discovered along this prolific mineralised trend on our 100 percent owned tenure.”
The latest drilling completes a 4931m program and forms part of more than 11,000m drilled by Great Southern since picking up the project in February last year.
Last month the company secured an initial term 21-year mining lease over its Southern Star prospect that also provides access to Bandya Road that connects to the company’s Amy Clarke prospect. The access road opens options for road train transport and toll treatment plants.
Mineralisation at Southern Star was discovered by previous explorers where drilling delivered significant gold hits with grades reportedly going as high as 60 g/t gold.
Historical intercepts include 15m at 6.5 g/t gold with a rich 4m interval at 23.3 g/t gold, in addition to 34m at 2.3 g/t gold with a 12m section going 5.3 g/t gold.
However, Great Southern says prior exploration appears to be limited to shallow and wide-spaced rotary or air core drilling.
The Duketon tenure covers over 450 square kilometres and takes in the Duketon greenstone belt.
ASX-listed Regis Resources’ 390,000-ounce Ben Hur deposit lies on the Duketon belt just 4km along strike to Southern Star.
Regis’ Rosemont mine, where more than one million ounces of gold have been defined, is also located on the Duketon belt about 24km on trend from Southern Star.
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By Matt Birney
