Gold and nickel explorer Panther Metals has struck a series of bonanza, shallow gold hits from its Burtville East gold project near Laverton, WA including 1m grading an eye-popping 478 grams per tonne from 28m.
Other jaw-dropping numbers from the project consist of 1m recording 79.90 g/t gold from 27m, 1m at 125.50 g/t gold from 34m and 1m running 43.80 g/t gold from 35m. A deeper result from 93m returned 1m at 73.3 g/t gold.
The company backed up the 1m intersections with a 15m hit going almost 54 g/t gold from 27m in what was described as a short drilling program.
The wholly owned Burtville East prospect is part of Panther’s Merolia gold project and contains a dominant land holding over some of the region's most prospective and under-explored ground covering 90 square kilometres.
The initial round of six RC holes only drilled a total of 675m as an initial first- pass program to test accepted mineralisation trends and explore the potential for alternative geologies.
Earlier theories had the mineralised trend as a north-south structure, however it is now believed the mineralisation is more complex and likely the result of shear deformation, forming a series of north-east, south-west-trending en echelon dilations.
Panther Metals Managing Director and CEO, Daniel Tuffin said: “The results from this short program of drilling at Burtville East are simply stunning. Some of the holes drilled into the accepted trend model did not perform as expected, while others, particularly in the case of hole BVE006, intercepted a new shallow broad high-grade zone of 15m at 53.94g/t gold.”
Tufin says a geological rethink was required about the accepted mineralisation trends at Burtville East, given the interception of a new shallow broad high-grade gold zone, combined with confirmation that unprocessed local stockpiles contain gold in previously unprocessed mineralised altered zones.
Unsurprisingly, Panther will now follow up with a new drill plan to further seek out and explore for new, mineralised trends at Burtville East, in addition to the Ironstone Gold, Comet Well and the as-yet-untested 40 Mile Camp gold prospects.
The Burtville East acreage contains historical underground workings, along with historically rejected stockpiles that have returned grades of up to 38.45g/t gold.
Other historical holes have returned gold grades showing 5m at 23 g/t, 8m at 6.7 g/t and 2m going 6.7 g/t.
Panther Metals has turned a few heads since its ASX listing in December last year with high-grade nickel cobalt hits at its Coglia project also in WA’s Laverton region. If its next drilling program backs up the latest numbers, then it might be its gold portfolio that gets a few pulses racing.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
