ASX-listed gold explorer, Okapi Resources has received regulatory approvals to kick off a maiden RC drilling program at its recently acquired historic Enmore gold project in NSW’s New England Fold Belt next month. Enmore includes two walk-up drill targets known as Sunnyside and Bora that have already yielded high-grade gold values from historic drilling and rock chip sampling work carried out by previous owners.
The project sits about 30km south-east of Armidale and about 50km south of Red River Resources’ recommissioned Hillgrove gold-antimony mine.
Stand-out historic drill intersections from the old Sunnyside mine area include 4 metres at an average grade of 11.94 grams per tonne gold from surface and 2m going 14.6 g/t from 46m.
Other significant gold hits from Sunnyside are 8m at 3.0 g/t from surface, 10m at 2.8 g/t from surface including 2m at 6.2 g/t and 20m at 1.7 g/t from 18m including 4m at 4.4 g/t.
Notable historic drill intercepts from the old Bora mine area are 13m grading an average 7.1 g/t gold including 4m at a serious 20.6 g/t gold and 7m at 4.1 g/t from 65m including 1m at 9.6 g/t gold.
Additional interesting gold assays from Bora are 4m at 6.0 g/t from 90.7m and 2m at 5.5 g/t from 144.6m including 1m at 9.3 g/t.
High gold grades associated with quartz veins and breccias have been interpreted to represent dilational ore shoots, according to Okapi.
The Perth-based company says it plans to sink an initial round of eight RC holes for an aggregate drilling coverage of 1,000 metres into Sunnyside and Bora as part of its minimum exploration expenditure commitments under the Enmore acquisition agreement struck late last year.
Drilling will be aimed at testing the potential for depth extensions to shallow mineralisation encountered by the historic drilling at the two priority prospects.
Although previous owners drilled a combined 213 diamond, RC and percussion holes totalling 11,323m at several prospects between 1974 and 2016 across the Enmore project area, the company says only limited deeper drilling was undertaken.
The main prospects at the Enmore goldfield have been delineated by the presence of continuous lode-style mineralisation over strike extents of up to 600m.
According to Okapi, the deeper drilling that was done previously was relatively wide-spaced and failed to adequately account for the extent of high-grade shoots or their oblique orientation to the host lode structure.
The company suggests the Enmore goldfield may be harbouring a potentially analogous geological setting to the Hillgrove antimony-gold mine.
Geological interpretation work on the Enmore historical data conducted by Okapi has prompted it to consider probing cross-cutting auriferous structures.
Historical exploration at Enmore targeted the dominant east-west mineralised structures.
Okapi says it recognised that at Hillgrove, higher-grade mineralisation tends to be associated with the confluence of cross-cutting north-west-south-east structures and the main east-west structures.
At Enmore, that structural relationship has not yet been explored by drill testing, the company says.
Widespread occurrences of high-grade gold were also returned in the prior rock chip samples.
Bonanza values included 74.1 g/t gold, 56 g/t, 41 g/t and 26 g/t, while historic sampling of underground workings and trenches recorded up to 0.45m at 234 g/t gold, 0.91m at 21 g/t, 0.76m at 23 g/t, 0.45m at 33 g/t, 1.52m at 16 g/t and 3m at 15g/t.
Most of the new RC holes Okapi plans to drill will zero in on Sunnyside where few of the approximately 140 historic holes there punched through below the oxide mineralisation.
Melbourne-based Red River recently poured first gold at the revived Hillgrove mining and processing operation in more than two decades.
The latest published measured, indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate for Hillgrove stands at 5 million tonnes of ore averaging 4.3 g/t gold and 1.5 per cent antimony for 692,000 ounces of contained gold and 75,000 tonnes of contained antimony.
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By Matt Birney
