ASX-listed WA gold hopeful, Middle Island Resources, looks to have struck paydirt at one of its new satellite deposits at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA, returning bonanza RC drill hits from the Ridge prospect that appears to be shaping up as an open pit ore source in its own right.
The best drill intersection from Ridge in the phase two RC and diamond campaign includes 4m going 99.5 grams per tonne gold from 13m including 1m at a serious 390 g/t, or an eye-watering 12.5 ounces to the tonne gold, from just 14m down-hole.
Other pulse-quickening numbers include 4m at 50.5 g/t from 3m including 1m at 198 g/t from 4m, 9m at 5.41 g/t from 22m, 2m at 5.85 g/t from 10m and 11m at 2.16 g/t from 15m.
The Perth-based company is optimistic that Ridge can add to Sandstone’s total gold resource inventory and help provide a boost to the economics of a planned recommissioning of the old mine site’s mothballed treatment plant, located about 12km south of the town of Sandstone between Mount Magnet and Leinster.
Troy Resources operated the plant from 1999 to 2010, processing a total of 4.4 million tonnes of ore to produce about 508,000 ounces of gold at a solid average recovered grade of 3.6 g/t.
Ridge is one of a cluster of three proximal satellite gold deposits, the others being McIntyre and McClaren, and Middle Island says they may even display some mineralised connection.
The Ridge deposit is located about 2.5km east-north-east of the company’s 100 per cent-owned, 600,000 tonnes per annum Sandstone gold processing plant that sits within a granted mining lease.
All of the phase two Ridge assays from 25 RC holes came from shallow depths and confirm results from previous drilling, according to the company.
Middle Island’s broader Sandstone infill and extension drilling blitz this year has totalled more than 40,000m to date, with 4,000m still to go.
Mineralisation at Ridge remains open to the north, where an additional 37 RC holes for 1,261m were recently completed. The company is awaiting assay results for those holes.
Middle Island Managing Director, Rick Yeates said: “Phase two RC drilling at the new Ridge satellite deposit confirm the previous drilling and, subject to pending drilling results from the northern extension, provide further encouragement that Ridge likely represents another new open pit deposit to supplement the planned Sandstone mill recommissioning inventory.”
“Detailed geological mapping in the vicinity of the McClaren-McIntyre-Ridge satellite gold deposits, together with high-resolution airborne magnetic data and ongoing RC and diamond drilling, will assist in resolving the complex stratigraphic and structural architecture in this highly prospective area. Given the close proximity of the satellite deposits, and in the context of current data, it is well likely that further work will demonstrate continuity between the three.”
Gold mineralisation at Ridge is hosted in an 8m to 25m thick, shallow steeply north-east-dipping banded iron formation unit that is mineralised from surface. Middle Island says that pending drilling results from the northern extremity, the Ridge mineralised zone is likely to represent a further new open pit deposit that should make a meaningful contribution to its current feasibility study, which is now well advanced.
Sandstone’s overall indicated and inferred resource was recently increased to 17.97 million tonnes grading 1.13 grams per tonne for a contained 650,600 ounces of gold, following a lift in the open-pit resource at the Shillington deposit. The feasibility study into rebooting Sandstone is expected to be finished by the end of 2020.
Punters greeted Middle Island’s bonanza drill hits and the gravity-defying record gold price with glee, pushing its shares up by as much as 13 per cent during trading today.
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By Matt Birney
