ASX-listed gold explorer, Great Southern Mining, has launched a new drilling campaign at its 100% owned Mon Ami gold project near Laverton in WA to follow up on previous high-grade RC drill hits. The positive results from its 2018 program culminated in a maiden resource estimate of 1.1 million tonnes of ore averaging 1.7 grams per tonne for a contained 59,000 ounces of gold at a 1 gram cut off.
According to the company, a number of gold bearing shoot extensions have now been identified along strike and down plunge of the current resource.
The extension along strike has yet to be fully tested and will be a focal point of this phase of drilling.
Best intersections from the previous drilling program were 2m going 32.8 g/t gold from 74m depth, 8m at 4.2 g/t gold from 136m, 2m at 27.6 g/t gold from 173m and 4m at 10.1 g/t gold from 31m.
Great Southern Chief Operating Officer, Mark Major said: “The Mon Ami deposit is open along strike and at depth, with this current (drilling) program focusing on finding gold bearing extensions along strike. There are many old shafts and historical diggings to the north and south of the current resource area which need further exploration.”
“We will also look to better our understanding of the mineralisation systems within the known area. There are certainly areas where high-grade gold has been recorded which need further testing. We believe there may be several high-grade splays associated with the shear zone, so this theory will be tested during this program.”
The Mon Ami project lies within the Laverton greenstone belt about 14km north-east of the Granny Smith mine and 12km south-east of Laverton itself. According to the Perth-based gold hopeful, the tenement contains widespread gold anomalisms and artisanal workings.
Great Southern’s ground holdings are in a solid gold endowment territory that plays host to a number of world class, multimillion-ounce, long-life orebodies including Sunrise Dam, Wallaby and numerous other 1Moz-plus deposits.
The area houses the historic Cox’s Find gold mine further north, also in the Laverton district, that was mined by Western Mining Corporation between 1937 and 1942 for production of about 77,000oz of gold at an impressive reported head grade of 21.94g/t from a vein stope operation.
Cox’s Find is located along strike and about 12km from Regis Resources’ Garden Well open pit gold mine.
Great Southern hopes to join the bevy of explorers in Australia who have hit paydirt as they breathe new life into old gold projects with modern exploration methods, many of whom have seen exponential growth in their market caps on the back of historic projects that have come back into vogue.
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