ASX-listed NSW precious and base metals explorer, Godolphin Resources has continued to eke out tantalising polymetallic intersections from an initial round of resource definition drilling at its Lewis Ponds project in the fertile Lachlan Fold Belt province. The pick of the new assays from Lewis Ponds was 5.2m going 0.36 g/t gold, 38 g/t silver, 2.05 per cent zinc and lead combined or 2.22 g/t gold-equivalent from 466.2m depth.
That included 1.3m at 1.25 g/t gold, 101 g/t silver, 5.98 per cent zinc and lead combined or 6.47 g/t gold-equivalent from 470.65m.
Godolphin last month reported a broad 43.2m drill hit from one of the Lewis Ponds lodes that returned average grades of 1.82 g/t gold, 14 g/t silver and 0.4 per cent zinc and lead combined or a gold-equivalent 2.36 g/t from 446m.
A higher-grade 6m section went 3.56 g/t gold, 11 g/t silver, 0.7 per cent zinc and lead combined or 4.23 g/t gold-equivalent from 443m, and 8m at 3.11 g/t gold, 32 g/t silver, 0.8 per cent zinc and lead combined or 4.27 g/t gold-equivalent from 465m.
Another stand-out drill intersection from the first diamond hole was 18.6m averaging 1.38 g/t gold, 55 g/t silver, 5.4 per cent zinc and 1.8 per cent lead or 6.72 g/t gold-equivalent from 72m.
Orange-based Godolphin says a second diamond drill program testing for northern extensions to the mineralisation and probing the essentially undrilled Quarry Lode is set to kick off next month.
Earlier this year Godolphin released a remodelled inferred mineral resource estimate for Lewis Ponds of 6.2 million tonnes grading an average 2.0 g/t gold, 80 g/t silver, 2.7 per cent zinc, 1.6 per cent lead and 0.2 per cent copper.
Contained metal content totals for the revised Lewis Ponds resource came in at 398,000 ounces of gold, 15.9 million ounces of silver, 170,000 tonnes of zinc, 99,000 tonnes of lead and 11,000 tonnes of copper.
Godolphin’s drilling to date has targeted the northern margins of the Lewis Ponds resource with a view to improving its understanding of the lode geometry and increasing the resource.
It also provided drill-core composite samples for bench-scale metallurgical test work.
The initial 3,300m diamond program, completed last month, vectored in on both the Tom’s and Spicer’s lodes and the potential hanging wall and footwall lodes identified by gold in soil anomalies, surface mapping and prior RC drilling undertaken by Godolphin.
Spicer’s Lode and Tom’s Lode speak for the mineral resource estimate.
The 148-square-kilometre Lewis Ponds project area takes in a bevy of old gold and base metal workings.
Historical mining and exploration at Lewis Ponds focused predominantly on stratabound volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide base metal models. However, a detailed review of the historic data led to Godolphin asserting an association between precious metals and the base metal lodes.
Recent results from the company’s soil sampling also picked up precious and base metal anomalies outside the mineral resource footprint over a strike length of 1.3km.
Follow-up RC drilling and the initial diamond holes point to “significant” gold enrichment in the northern, previously poorly drilled footwall portion of the Lewis Ponds system.
One of the four diamond holes pierced the footwall lode, which is not included in the current mineral resource estimate for Lewis Ponds.
According to Godolphin, the Lewis Ponds mineralisation style shows some similarities to Regis Resources’ McPhillamys gold deposit, which lies about 20km south along structure from Lewis Ponds.
In 2019 Regis tabled probable reserves for McPhillamys, one of Australia’s largest undeveloped open-pit gold resources, of 60.8 million tonnes grading an average 1.04 g/t gold for 2.02 million ounces of contained gold.
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By Matt Birney
