Zuleika Gold has its drills on standby after it uncovered encouraging gold anomalies in Menzies. The finds have provided a timely boost for its hopes of producing the precious yellow metal in the “medium term”.
The WA-focused gold explorer used geochemical soil sampling at the Menzies project, which is about 120km north of Kalgoorlie, to define the anomalies. It says one of them is 2km long and coincides with a line of historical workings that are poorly tested.
The company says the anomalies are also in areas with encouraging structural preparation and prospective greenstone lithologies. Management now plans to complete an in-field review, with possible in-fill geochemistry, prior to organising its drill campaign.
Zuleika, formerly known as Dampier Gold, has amassed four exploration projects, plus equity in the K2 deposit in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. Its Menzies project, covering about 203 square kilometres, comprises one exploration licence, two mining leases and 13 prospecting licences.
Apart from its credible size, the project also boasts both potential and nearology as it covers granites and greenstones along the western edge of the Menzies Greenstone belt and sits immediately to the west of the one-million-ounce Menzies goldfield.
Zuleika says it is also encouraged by the abundance of historical workings across its tenements, particularly on one mining lease where a linear zone of workings and old shafts stretches more than 500m.
The company collected 503 soil samples at Menzies between late 2022 and early this year. While previous work focused on the sole exploration licence on the western part of its tenement package, the most recent sampling concentrated on the prospective and structurally-prepared greenstone-granite contact.
Samples were collected manually from a depth of about 10-20cm below surface and assayed for 52 elements. Zuleika says the best gold result was 154 parts per billion, with an average background of 11ppb.
It says two distinct anomalies are defined. The first coincides with sheared lithological contact alongside historical underground workings, while the second has a 4km east-west strike orientation. The latter appears to be largely-associated with transported alluvial regolith.
The combination of prospective lithologies, favourable structural settings, historic gold workings and promising soil samples has whetted Zuleika’s appetite for further activity to investigate the project’s potential and has prompted it to schedule drilling for the coming quarter.
Zuleika is also planning to use geochemical soil sampling to define more targets within its Goongarrie tenements, to the south of the Menzies project, after vehicular access to the more isolated sections of that area was recently re-established.
Assays for nearly 500 Goongarrie samples have been received and the company says results confirm the tenor and extent of western, central and eastern gold anomalies. About 250 samples are yet to be returned.
Zuleika notes that the remaining areas to be sampled cover the central zone of an exploration lease that previously reported the most significant in-soil anomalism for both gold and nickel.
The company is also exploring its Zuleika project, which sits south of Goongarrie on the Zuleika Shear and starts 25km north-west of Kalgoorlie. It houses the Zuleika North and adjoining Grants Patch prospects where field validation and drill-hole planning have been completed on the encouraging soil geochemistry anomalies identified at both prospects.
Management says drilling is scheduled for the second quarter of this year, but it is awaiting the delivery of outstanding geochemical results so priority can be given to the most prospective targets.
The company has collected more than 1000 soil samples from its Zuleika project this year and results are expected to arrive from April.
While Menzies is well-known in WA’s tourism sector as the “gateway to Lake Ballard”, Zuleika is optimistic the Goldfields town will soon become its pathway to gold production.
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By Mark Irving
