Middle Island Resources’ Sandstone project looks to be the gift that just keeps on giving with latest drill results showing a 4m hit going 50.5 g/t gold which includes a 1m section at a crazy 198 grams per tonne gold – and only 3 metres from surface. Additional results from the Ridge prospect are expected to flow over the coming weeks.
The Ridge discovery forms part of Middle Island’s Sandstone gold project in the northern Goldfields of Western Australia. The 100%-owned Sandstone project consists of an old mothballed gold plant that was decommissioned many years ago by a previous owner and a strategic ground holding in the historic mining region that is proving to be prolific hunting ground for the emerging gold developer.
The latest results from Ridge come from drilling at the southern end of the discovery with two shallow RC drill holes recording high-grade results. One hole was drilled directly below the 50.5 gram intersection and purports to show the gold lode extending at depth. That hole returned an intercept of 9 metres at 5.41 g/t gold from 22 metres down hole.
The company said that given the new high grade intercepts were derived from very shallow depths of between 3m and 7m, the results may partially reflect gold in nugget form, however grades reporting over a 4-metre interval and the confirmatory down-dip intercept may suggest otherwise.
Middle Island said a significant amount of the sampling from the Ridge drilling program has yet to be reported by the lab, setting up a degree of anticipation as the new numbers start to be tabled.
The ongoing chain of high-grade gold results points to the pedigree of the emerging Ridge deposit. Just last week, the company reported an impressive intercept of 4 metres at 99.5 g/t including 1 metre at 390 g/t gold, from only 14 metres down hole. This intersection came from the opposite end of the Ridge discovery, some 300 metres to the north, leaving a lot of blue sky in-between.
The Phase 2 development program at Sandstone remains on schedule with more than 12,000 metres of RC and diamond drilling having been ploughed into the ground in recent weeks. The company has also kicked off geotechnical and metallurgical drilling on several of the new satellite discoveries as it updates its feasibility study and looks to make the jump back into production.
With a pocket full of cash and its rigs pumping out the metres now, Middle Island is well placed to get a handle on the full extent of this new discovery.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
