Southern Gold has been granted tenure over the historic Aphae Gold Mine in South Korea, further building its impressive portfolio of gold projects in the mineral rich peninsula state.
The Alphae mine, which was designed to exploit near-surface high grade ores, produced nearly 4000 ounces of gold in its day but was only developed to about 25m depth in an open pit “glory hole” with limited underground workings.
Southern Gold believes the historical mine at Aphae represents only the tip of the iceberg after a detailed ground assessment by the company revealed a 100m wide corridor of hydrothermally-altered quartz veining that is open along strike in both directions and at depth.
Limited diamond drilling completed at Aphae in 1980 returned an intercept of 0.5 metres grading 7g/t gold and 104g/t silver from 170.8m down hole, confirming that mineralisation continues to some depth at the project.
The company sampled mullock dumps at the mine during detailed geological reconnaissance last year, returning several samples over 1g/t gold, with results up to 6.08g/t gold and 93g/t silver.
These results echo rock chip samples of mullock taken in 1995 by Ivanhoe Mines at Aphae, where peak assays up to 7.72g/t gold and 55g/t silver were received.
The company has identified Aphae as one of several very prospective epithermal gold-silver targets in South Korea, where there is potential for the mineralised system to be much larger than the existing footprint indicated.
According to management, a number of walk up drilling targets exist at the project that will be tested in the coming months.
Southern Gold Managing Director, Mr Simon Mitchell said: “Like our Hampyeong ASX release last month, the grant of the Aphae project continues to demonstrate our capability of securing tenure in South Korea and reinforces the message that we are progressively building an exciting epithermal gold play.”
“This is another “walk up” drill target, however the difference is historic drilling that confirms mineralisation at depth. Hampyeong and now Aphae are just the beginning of a major exploration effort in a uniquely prospective geological terrane with drilling to commence at Hampyeong in the next few weeks.”
The Southern Gold technical team is confident of identifying other highly prospective, easy to advance, drill-ready projects throughout South Korea, a country well-known for its high-grade epithermal gold and silver mines.
The company believes there is a high probability of converting its exploration ground into economic discoveries in this jurisdiction and it is continuing to actively generate projects throughout the country.
The grant of the Aphae project is a milestone for Southern in Korea, where it has several other high-quality targets under tenement application and awaiting grant.
Southern Gold are undertaking a full review of all historical data available for Aphae, including assessing the value of existing government geophysical data for the region.
Diamond drilling is then planned to test the strike and down-dip extent of the Aphae mineralisation that has experienced very limited exploration over the years.
Southern Gold is spoilt for choice in South Korea and it has its foot on a number of solid looking projects in-country.
Korea represents the ‘blue sky’ strategy for Southern Gold that complements its already producing gold mine near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
By Matt Birney
