Kairos Minerals is moving closer to the coveted one-million-ounce resource threshold at the Mt York gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company has launched a 20,000m reverse circulation drilling campaign with the aim to convert a newly defined exploration target into ounces that can be added to the project’s existing 873,000 ounce resource base.
Mt York, 100km south of Port Hedland, features three separate deposits including the dominant Mt York with 17.2 million tonnes at 1.26 grams for 697,000 ounces of gold in the southern part of Kairos’ 100 per cent-owned tenement block.
Iron Stirrup has a further 1.6Mt at 1.64 g/t gold for 86,000 ounces.
And in the north, Old Faithful hosts 2Mt at 1.37 g/t gold for 89,000 ounces.
Kairos’ 20,000m of new drilling includes a focus on extensions to the three deposits and also on boosting resource confidence with infill holes.
The company has also now added an exploration target for areas close to the three current deposits to be tested during the ongoing drilling campaign.
Kairos has put up a “purely conceptual” exploration target of up to 7.4Mt at 1.5-1.8 g/t of gold that requires supporting exploration and data.
Nine holes to a maximum depth of 200m for 1,200m of drilling are planned to test a 370m-long strike zone north-west of the Mt York deposit, where Kairos has an exploration target of 53,000-95,000 ounces. Management says one historical hole drilled in the Mt York extension target area returned 1m at 2.85 g/t gold from 73m.
Intriguingly, around 1km to the north-east in an adjoining tenement, ASX-listed Pilbara Metals hit the same lithological unit as the Mt York mineralisation returning 16m at 2.43 g/t gold from just 16m depth.
Zakanaka, between Mt York and Iron Stirrup, is another target that will be tested by 11 holes for 1,360m of drilling along a 600m strike length. The holes will range between 60m and 260m depth targeting mineralisation between two historical pits and to the south of the pits.
Management reports that historical drilling below one of the pits delivered impressive intercepts including a 20m hit going 3.95 g/t gold from 21m, and 14m at 5.2 g/t gold from 16m.
A further 100,000-to-167,000 ounce exploration target has been generated to the south-east of Iron Stirrup where 21 holes will be drilled to maximum depths of 200m for a total of 2,980m.
Kairos has previously drilled two holes within the target area but believes that both holes missed the main mineralised extension. A sample at the bottom of one hole returned 2m at 0.26 g/t gold.
Aggressive drilling in a fertile gold district that already has Kairos knocking on the door of 1 million resource ounces could see it leapfrogging the target into even more impressive company in the months ahead.
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By Matt Birney
