TNT Mines drilling campaign over its Eureka deposit in WA has now drawn to a close with the company having ploughed more than 11,000 metres of drilling into the gold-rich ore system that has returned a swag of mineralisation including a surprising 34m hit going 1.75 grams per tonne gold from 103m. The drilling has defined new mineralisation surrounding the existing open pit and highlighted a new discovery along strike.
Assays from just three drill holes remain outstanding now.
The drilling program across the Eureka mine environs has returned a stream of solid intercepts which include 3m at 7.89 g/t gold from 103m and 14m at 2.09 g.t gold, which included a 4m stretch going 5.48 g/t gold from only 51m down-hole. The new drill results appear to confirm the mineralised Eureka shear extensions both along strike and at depth.
TNT is now waiting for the final sampling results to flow in from the drilling program before it embarks on the estimation of an upgraded JORC resource.
Whilst drilling over the Eureka pit area has proven highly successful, the company’s maiden drilling program over the Eureka North target, 600m north of the open pit has also delivered some eye-catching results including 4m at 10.99 g/t gold from 42m and 6m at 4.17 g/t gold from 52m down-hole, setting up the discovery as a priority target for future drilling.
The company says it has now moved its drill rig further west to its Warriedar gold project in WA’s Murchison goldfield. TNT has kicked off a 4,000m RC program adjacent to the historic high-grade Reids Ridge underground mine, where the company is looking to define the northern strike extents of the ore system and to begin testing the sulphidic quartz-reef at depth.
Drilling at Reids Ridge is already producing mineralised samples, with RC holes encountering intervals containing up to 5 per cent sulphides, which bodes well for the ongoing exploration program.
TNT Mines Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Boyes said: “The results from the northern high-grade area and the north-east extension at Eureka are very encouraging as little to no previous exploration has been carried out testing structures in those areas. The north-east area is of particular interest as in excess of 2,000m of strike remains untested. We are looking forward to having a rig back onsite in the coming weeks to follow up on those targets.”
“In the meantime, Reids Ridge drilling is continuing and we will be commencing an independent resource update for Eureka along with some updated optimisation numbers for the new Eureka resource.”
TNT’s Eureka gold project is located 50 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie in the revered Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia. The project consists of four granted mining leases and one prospecting lease that extend along more than 7km of the Eureka shear that hosts the old Eureka open pit gold mine.
The Eureka deposit was last toll mined in 2018 by Tyranna Resources in cooperation with Kalgoorlie mining identity, Graham McGarry.
Tyranna and McGarry targeted a 20m wide shear zone, hosting quartz-carbonate veining and sulphides, extracting around 53,000 tonnes of ore grading a very respectable 3.3 g/t gold.
However, subsequent drilling and modelling by TNT demonstrates that a sizable resource remains in situ below the existing Eureka open pit. The ore system also hosts a number of high-grade shoots below the pit that appear to extend to depth. Although poorly defined, these shoots host some solid intercepts including 5m at 25.60 g/t gold and 12m at 7.88 g/t gold, which will no doubt continue to drive TNT’s drilling program in the months ahead.
The resource at Eureka currently stands at 762,000 tonnes at 1.8 g/t gold however, with the company’s revised geological model coming into play and a massive dataset to draw upon, this number is likely to climb as TNT updates its resources across the auriferous shear in the weeks ahead.
Whilst the drill rig has moved to Reids Ridge, work continues over the Eureka tenure as the company begins to unravel the host structures controlling the gold mineralisation immediately north-east of the deposit. TNT is also designing extensional drilling to further test the near surface lateritic and quartz reef-hosted gold which the company has begun to delineate north of the open pit whilst it has also recently completed soil sampling over the balance of the tenure – results are pending.
TNT expects to bring its RC rig back to Eureka for a second phase of infill and extensional drilling in late May once it has completed its first-pass program at Reids Ridge.
With an updated resource for Eureka now sitting in the wings and drilling charging forward at Reids Ridge, TNT’s exploration program looks to be gathering a head of steam and will likely provide a flow of interesting results as builds its brand in the goldfields of WA.
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By Matt Birney
