Junior gold explorer Meeka Gold Limited has discovered a new, shallow lying oxide gold lode amongst a slew of other high grade hits, adding to the company’s ongoing success with the drill bit at its Murchison gold project in WA. Excellent shallow intercepts from recent drilling include 16 metres grading 6.67 grams per tonne gold from 20m downhole with a 4m internal section going 24.1 g/t gold.
Other notable intercepts from recent drilling at the company’s Turnberry Central gold prospect within the Murchison project include 29m at 1.95 g/t gold from 32m downhole, 21m grading 2.28 g/t gold from 100m and 11m at 1.25 g/t gold from 66m.
Several of the new high-grade gold hits sit outside of the current boundaries of the mineral resource and they have changed Meeka’s interpretation of the mineralisation at Turnberry Central. The newly identified mineralisation is a shallow oxide lode that appears along strike to the northwest and has yet to be drill tested having been encountered outside of the current interpretated resource extent.
Final results from a different drill program at the company’s St Anne’s prospect also within the Murchison gold project came back from the lab showing further shallow gold mineralisation 3.5 kilometres south of the 610,000 ounce gold Turnberry mineral resource. One solid result from St Anne’s is a 20m intersection going 1.01 g/t gold from 40m downhole.
The results received from St Anne’s round out the final two drill holes of an eight-hole program.
Earlier significant drill intersections from drilling at St Anne’s include 24 metres grading 4.81 grams per tonne gold from 68m downhole, with a 4m internal section going an impressive 20.3 g/t gold. Another 36m intersection came in at 1.02 g/t gold from 24m and an 8m section assayed up at 2.66 g/t gold 104m downhole.
Importantly, no resource estimate has ever been defined at St Anne’s, leaving significant potential for the prospect with another round of drilling coming soon.
Remarkable results from the first phase of drilling at St Anne’s that occurred along strike from the recent work include 3m grading 13.82 g/t gold from 103m downhole, 20m going 2.4 g/t gold from 57m and 15m that gave up 1.5 g/t gold from 108m.
Mineralisation at St Anne’s occurs in a very similar geological environment to Turnberry according to the company. Gold lodes have been recorded in quartz veining with pyrite alteration and on the contact between a mafic dolerite and sedimentary shales.
Approximately 6,900m of drill samples from the Murchison project remain at the assay lab, in transit or on core racks being processed in preparation for sampling.
Meeka’s flagship Murchison gold project has a combined 343 square kilometre landholding in the Murchison Goldfields that houses a total mineral resource of 1.1 million ounces of gold across the project.
Meeka Gold Chief Executive Officer, Tim Davidson said:
“The results from our ongoing drilling campaign in the Murchison continue to deliver to the upside with shallow gold mineralisation initially identified at St Anne’s, and now at Turnberry Central. Neither of these new zones of shallow oxide mineralisation are included in our Mineral Resource inventory, however given the grade and width there is strong potential for them to provide additional open pit mining opportunities.”
Meeka looks to be bringing the historically high-grade Murchison gold project back to life, consistently identifying new mineralisation outside of the known mineral resource extents.
With more high-grade gold hits being churned out from the new St Anne’s discovery from a second pass - the company will no doubt be itching to role the drill rig back in for a third round as it looks to complete a hat-trick.
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By Matt Birney
