Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is spreading its exploration wings at its Pinjin project in WA to test new targets next to existing prospects in the southern part of the area’s prospective Laverton Tectonic Zone (LTZ).
The company has lined up air-core (AC) drilling at two targets named Kirgella East and Kirgella West, which are respectively centred 1200m north-east and north-west from its combined Kirgella Gift and Providence prospects.
The latter two targets have already shown their colours in previous work, sufficient enough for KalGold to put together a combined inferred mineral resource of 2.34 million tonnes at a grade of 1 gram per tonne gold for about 76,400 ounces from just 3m depth below surface.
Management views the resource as just the tip of a potential iceberg as it remains open along strike between and beyond the ends of the two historic shows – and also at depth. It also sees the initial estimate as comparable to other deposits in the LTZ and typical of the region, with particularly appropriate analogues being noted at Ramelius Resources’ nearby 1.4 million-ounce Rebecca gold deposit, 20km along strike to the south.
With extensions in mind, initial scout AC drilling has been completed on the inferred northern extension at Kirgella Gift for about 285m. Similar work has been carried out south of Providence for much the same distance, but also overlapping the south-western half of the prospect’s line of workings to sniff out potentially parallel mineralisation.
Initial interpretations late last year also indicated possible deeper structural intersection targets linking Kirgella North, Kirgella and Providence that have not yet been tested.
The current drilling campaign at the new Kirgella East and Kirgella West targets, both of which exhibit promising structural and geological complexity and gold-hosting potential, is slated to take up to a fortnight and is likely to require about 4500m of drilling. Neither target has been drilled before, making the new work a maiden program of first-pass, open-spaced scout drilling.
KalGold says the campaign will mark its first systematic assessment of the gold potential of the greater Pinjin project area, taking it beyond its previous exploration of historic prospects including Kirgella Gift, Providence and Wessex, which sits just 600m from Hawthorn Resources’ renowned Anglo Saxon gold mine. The company is using high-resolution geophysics incorporated with other datasets to guide its structural interpretations and new target selections.
The project lies within the giant north-west/south-east-trending regional structural domain known as the LTZ. The 10km to 20km-wide LTZ is a major regional and crustal-scale shear complex comprising faults of various ages, including the major Celia lineament.
It represents the strongly-deformed eastern margin of the Kurnalpi geological terrane and is a major structural component within the Archaean Yilgarn Craton. It hosts more than 20 significant gold deposits including Sunrise Dam, Wallaby, Granny Smith, Red October, Anglo Saxon, Rebecca and several goldfields cumulatively containing more than 30 million ounces of gold.
A significant chunk of the LTZ extends from the town of Laverton in the north and Breaker Resources’ Lake Roe project, 240km further south. Apart from the major operations, that section alone is riddled with smaller recorded diggings, shafts, prospects, mines and lesser, but still significant, projects that all fit the old adage of “where there is smoke, there is fire”, as it applies to the likelihood of finding gold.
The southern part of the LTZ – and its neighbouring Celia Tectonic Zone – has not been explored as much as the northern area, mainly due to poor outcrop. KalGold believes that is why some of the biggest discoveries in recent years, such as Ramelius’ Rebecca and Breaker’s 1.68 million-ounce Lake Roe gold projects were only found relatively recently.
The company recognises the potential for the area to host large-scale gold deposits and has focused on building a respectable ground position, with the objective of gaining exposure to one of the most prospective parts of the Eastern Goldfields province. Given the almost ubiquitous cover throughout much of the area, management sees drilling as the only effective way to test the LTZ within its Pinjin project.
AC drilling is a useful technique to economically cover extensive areas of exploration ground and gain useful insights into sub-cover geochemistry, to home in on targets for subsequent phases of drilling towards resource definition. The company believes it can increase its chances of success with methodical scientific approaches using the best data available and by focusing on key target areas with strong geological, geophysical and geochemical vectors to gold mineralisation.
Considering KalGold’s Pinjin project sits in what real estate agents would call a “prime location” in the Laverton region – which is second only to Kalgoorlie for WA gold endowment – it would seem to be well-positioned to identify a new project to add to the area’s already impressive record.
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By Doug Bright
