Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has completed a maiden 16-hole reverse circulation drilling program to test its recent Lighthorse gold discovery at the company’s Pinjin project, 140 kilometres northeast of Kalgoorlie.
The company kicked off the follow-up reverse circulation drilling early this month. Despite rain and groundwater issues, it completed the planned 16-hole program along three 100-metre-spaced lines for 2446m, to a maximum downhole depth of 222m.
Lighthorse is a well-earned company-generated find from KalGold’s December 2024 air core drilling program at its Kirgella West prospect, 1km northwest of the Kirgella Gift deposit, which it won through pattern-based bottom-of-hole geochemistry helped by aeromagnetic data.
KalGold jagged the extensive, thick, high-grade gold air core intercepts along 70m to 90m-spaced holes on a nominal 200m line spacing. The intercepts demonstrate classic bottom-of-hole geochemistry identifying a supergene gold blanket at the base of surface cover that currently measures about 500m east-west but remains unconstrained.
Best responses from the discovery air core program include one hole intercepting an apparent high-grade core zone to deliver 17m at 4.81 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 48m at the end of hole, including 8m at 9.21g/t gold from 52m which ended in mineralisation.
A second hole nailed 4m assaying 4.72g/t gold from 52m, which also ended in mineralisation.
The supergene blanket reflects the sub-surface distribution of a cohesive gold signature derived from an unproven but likely primary gold source in the underlying host rock.
Such occurrences are relatively common - especially in Western Australia’s deeply weathered or lateritised environments - and can represent an excellent and economical exploration tool if early analysis of the regolith environment points to a favourable environment for the approach.
Early manual contouring of the available data demonstrates likely strong structural controls are at play along the area’s pervasive structural network.
Principal fault/shear axes oriented at about 55 degrees and 140 degrees coincide with the strongest mineralisation. The key axes combine with weaker mineralised north-south trends that might represent bleed-off zones away from important feeder trends or possible erosive channelling of the blanket along some structures.
The supergene mineralisation currently extends north-east for about 800m and south-east for 600m, but this is likely to be modified by future work.
KalGold’s Pinjin project is influenced by the massive Laverton Tectonic Zone, a major regional, crustal-scale, mineralisation-controlling suture that hosts many significant gold projects with a combined estimated output of about 30 million ounces of gold in the Eastern Goldfields. These projects include Ramelius Resources’ 1.4-million-ounce Rebecca project, 25km south of Pinjin.
KalGold has recently defined key target areas along strike from the Lighthorse discovery that have not been tested. The company has defined a north-south deformed magnetic corridor that encloses the discovery, which runs parallel with the western margin of the Laverton zone.
The corridor appears to extend for an impressive 13km along strike within KalGold tenure. The company is actively assessing about 6km of the trend closest to and including Lighthorse.
KalGold has also scheduled additional follow-up air core drill testing to begin after Easter to explore the possible strike extent of Lighthorse and the prospectivity of its immediate surrounds. The program will emphasise the Laverton zone’s dominant north-south trend, which has only been thinly tested.
Samples from the company’s recent reverse circulation drill program were delivered to the Kalgoorlie laboratory during the weekend for fast-tracked analysis. The company expects to receive the results in mid- to late-April. The results are expected to help establish the geology and likely scale of the Lighthorse discovery.
KalGold remains well-funded to continue its exploration of the project. Just two weeks ago, the company gained firm commitments to raise $4 million through an institutional investment to accelerate exploration at its Pinjin gold project.
The market will almost certainly be welded to its screens in anticipation of the results from the follow-up drill tests at Lighthorse.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
By Doug Bright
