Meeka Metals’ latest diamond drilling has confirmed high-grade gold at its St Anne’s deposit as part of the company’s flagship Murchison gold project. Headline results include 12.8m at 5.21 grams per tonne gold from 54.3m. The company says it remains on target to release a maiden mineral resource for the deposit later this month with further drilling also to commence in coming weeks.
Other eye-catching results from the recent drilling include 7.8m grading 2.69 grams per tonne gold from 50.2m containing 2m running 8.2 g/t gold. Another 19.3m intersection came in at 1.27 g/t from 39.7m, including 2.5m at 7.04 g/t. The headline 12.8m intersection was part of a broader 20.7m hit running 3.29 g/t gold.
The company has also been boosted by metallurgical test work results which have confirmed gold recovery rates of 98 per cent for St Anne’s.
The company is set to commence further drilling in coming weeks as it looks to build its 700,000-ounce gold resource. The upcoming campaign aims to systematically target a ranked sequence of coincident gold-arsenic anomalies along the Fairway shear zone, to the north and south of the existing mineral resource.
The Fairway shear zone is a broad 25km long north-south shear zone transecting the Gnaweeda greenstone belt, a package of Archean greenstones. Meeka says 90 per cent of the belt has either no drilling or ineffective, broad-spaced, vertical reconnaissance drilling from the 1990s and 2000s, giving it the opportunity to grow the already substantial resource.
Meeka Metals Managing Director, Tim Davidson said: “This drilling, completed to support the St Anne’s Mineral Resource, comminution test work and geotechnical evaluation for open pit design has confirmed the high-grade nature of the mineralisation….Additionally, the high gold recoveries, rapid leach kinetics and low cyanide consumption, reported in December 2022 point to St Anne’s making a meaningful contribution to the Pre-feasibility Study due in mid-2023.”
Apart from its swelling Murchison gold projects, the company has also muscled in on the rare earths sector, which is booming in WA’s Esperance region.
Back in February the company wrapped up an infill and extensional drilling campaign focused on targeting rare earths at its Circle Valley project with a view to delivering a maiden mineral resource during the June quarter.
Last year the explorer produced some impressive results from its maiden drill program at the operation with highlights including one assay that went 12m at 2690 parts per million total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” from 20m including 4m at a mammoth 6894ppm TREO from 24m. Additional assays showed similar results with 8m going 2766ppm from 28m including 4m at 5031ppm TREO from 32m.
Importantly, the company has also recorded consistently high neodymium and praseodymium levels with a standout figure of 31 per cent and several intersections reporting between 20 to 30 per cent.
The two rare earths are essential components in the manufacture of permanent magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines.
Meeka owns 100 per cent of two exploration licences at Circle Valley, covering 222 square kilometres of predominantly freehold agricultural land currently used for crop and livestock farming. The project is one of two rare earths plays the company has near WA’s southern coast with the second being Cascade to the south-west. Cascade was pegged on the back of Circle Valley’s potential and is an impressive tenure of more than 2000 square kilometres.
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By Matt Birney
