ASX-listed junior explorer Strickland Metals is set to kick off reverse circulation and aircore drilling programs this month at a keystone deposit and an emerging prospect at its Horse Well gold project on the north-eastern flank of the Yandal-Millrose greenstone belt in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields. The company says its recently launched gravity geophysical surveying work has turned up several “look-alike” targets near the anchor Dusk Til Dawn deposit that it intends probing with a round of RC drilling.
The planned 7,000m of drilling will also take in further testing of Dusk Til Dawn itself.
Strickland’s latest published inferred mineral resource estimate for Dusk Til Dawn tips the scales at 3.49 million tonnes grading an average 1.4 grams per tonne gold for 108,900 ounces of contained gold.
The $33 million market-cap company says the gravity survey, which was aimed at refining drill targeting, revealed a series of gravity features at the prospect area.
Strickland suggests results of the survey also appear to have added weight to its reinterpretation of how Dusk Til Dawn gold mineralisation trends.
It now sees the mineralisation plunging to the south-east and remaining open. The company also believes the core alteration zone’s pyrite content, which has a close association with the gold mineralisation, generates the subtle gravity high feature at Dusk Til Dawn.
Strickland says if the reinterpretation proves correct, much of the prior drilling undertaken at Dusk Til Dawn has been carried out oblique to the main plunge in mineralisation and may mean Dusk Til Dawn has not been adequately tested.
Following on from the reinterpretation, there are several regional look-alike gravity features along strike that draw “strong parallels” to the Dusk Til Dawn gravity anomaly, according to the company.
The new drilling program is due to kick off at Dusk Til Dawn and some of the regional look-alike targets later this month.
At the nearby Horse North prospect, Strickland is making preparations for a 10,000m aircore campaign that is planned to take place over the prominent gold-bearing Celia shear zone north of the Horse deposits.
Preliminary gravity survey results point to key structural trends and targets that have been subject to little or no drilling.
The company says the Celia shear structure has been delineated by the geophysics work and looks to be trending northwards from the existing multi-deposit overall inferred resource at Horse of 148,100 ounces.
The Horse Well project encompasses the Dusk Til Dawn and Horse prospects that straddle the same shear zone and combined host an inferred mineral resource of 5.72 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.4 g/t for 257,000 ounces of contained gold.
Strickland’s two drilling programs form part of its massive 100,000m of aircore drilling and 30,000m of RC drilling mapped out for between now and the end of next year across its triumvirate of Yandal gold projects.
The company has just completed a $12.2 million capital raise, comprising an $8 million share placement and $4.2 million non-renounceable rights issue.
Institutional and sophisticated investors and a menagerie of Strickland directors piled into the stock offering.
Strickland Metals Chief Executive Officer Andrew Bray said: “Once again we are very pleased with the level of support received from both existing and new investors. The funds raised will be primarily used to fund the acquisition of the Millrose gold project and to further exploration programs across our suite of Yandal projects.”
The company’s major shareholder L11 Capital Pty Ltd, an entity controlled by Mr Bray, has emerged with an 8.66 per cent shareholding.
Strickland recently struck an agreement to acquire the Millrose gold project – south-south-east of and abutting the Horse Well project – from Millrose Gold Mines and Golden Eagle Mining for $10 million in staged payments.
The Millrose deposit, which also occurs on the Celia shear zone, has an indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate ascribed to it of 6 million tonnes at 1.8 g/t for 346,000 ounces of contained gold.
The asset expands Strickland’s global gold resource inventory on the north-eastern flank of the Yandal-Millrose greenstone belt to 603,000 ounces and tenement holdings in the Yandal region to almost 2,000 square kilometres.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
