A maiden diamond drilling campaign by junior explorer, Native Mineral Resources has intercepted a new quartz vein below a gold rich outcropping vein at its 100 per cent owned Music Well project north of Leonora in Western Australia. Recent sampling of the outcropping vein returned an average 3.16 grams per tonne gold from 128 samples, with one sample delivering an eye-catching 147 g/t gold.
Prior to the recent drilling, Native Minerals had been exploring the outcropping quartz vein at surface and at shallow depth.
The recently wrapped up four-hole campaign was looking to test the depth extent of the outcropping vein and determine its width below surface. The company also designed the drilling to evaluate potential for other gold bearing veins at deeper levels.
Management says all four holes hit the target vein at about 50m downhole, confirming the down-dip continuation of the gold rich vein identified at surface.
The company believes the true width of the vein at depth to be about 3.8m, as intercepted in one of the holes.
The discovery of a new zone of quartz veining and massive sulphide veining between 77m and 96m could also add further potential to the company’s gold search at Music Well.
Assay results from the 450m drilling campaign are pending.
Native Mineral Resources Managing Director, Blake Cannavo said: “We are delighted with the initial outcomes from our diamond drilling programme at Music Well with the target vein being hit in every hole at the depth predicted. We have already confirmed that the vein is gold-bearing near the surface, so the confirmation that the quartz vein continues to at least 40m depth below the surface is significant….
We are also encouraged that the drilling, which extended well beyond the target vein, has identified a new quartz vein and other sulfide-rich veins. The full suite of assay and geochemistry results from this drilling will provide further important detail for our technical team and we expect to receive these soon.”
The high-grade vein mostly outcrops along 250m of strike and dips below cover to the north-east and south-west. The company says the vein is still open in all directions.
Recent sampling of crushed rock taken from up to 1m into the quartz vein returned grades above 1 g/t gold from 28 samples, with 10 of the samples going more than 10 g/t gold.
Sampling of the vein at surface also returned cracking grade gold earlier this year including 100 g/t, 45.84 g/t and 15.02 g/t gold.
The company has now also concluded a 1,000-tonne bulk sampling program of material sourced from a 130m section of the vein at surface. Results from the toll treating program are pending.
Native Mineral Resources will no doubt be sweating on the results from drilling at Music Well. Things could get interesting quickly for the Perth-based explorer should the assays deliver high-grade gold at depth that even comes close to resembling the grades at surface.
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By Matt Birney
