Venus fires up the rig at Sandstone

Venus Metals has commenced a fresh round of reverse circulation, or “RC” drilling at its 90 per cent-owned Range View prospect as it hunts down more gold at the interesting looking target just 1.5kms north-east of its Bell Chambers gold deposit.  Venus is testing the extension of high-grade gold mineralisation discovered late last year at Range View, just off the Paynes Find-Sandstone Road, east of Mount Magnet in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.

The Venus-operated Range View prospect is part of the company’s Sandstone gold project that is wedged between its Bell Chambers deposit and Middle Island Resources’ clutch of gold discoveries located just south of the historical gold mining town of Sandstone in WA.

The Perth-based gold and base metals hopeful said one RC drill hole in the previous reconnaissance drilling campaign at Range View tagged a significant intercept of 11 metres grading 4.69 grams per tonne gold from just 12m downhole.

Importantly, the drill hit included an intriguing 1m section going 38.92 g/t gold, from just 20m downhole, with the gold-rich zone still open at depth and along strike.

Venus even believes the recent hit at Range View represents the potential southern extension of the gold lodes that were mined by prospectors in the early 1900s.

Historical small-scale mining along the Range View trend recovered 3,688 ounces of gold from dirt grading a healthy 21 g/t gold, according to Venus.

Interestingly, late last year, Venus upgraded the resource estimate at Bell Chambers to a touch over half a million tonnes at 1.27 g/t for 21,800 contained ounces of gold despite the area being picked over for years by small scale gold hunters.

Bell Chambers and Range View lie on two parallel shear zones containing graphite shales and meta-basalts.  Importantly however, Venus said the gold mineralisation at Bell Chambers appears to be similar to the area’s common banded iron formation-hosted gold mineralisation, as reported by Middle Island Resources.

With around three-quarters of a million ounces in its inventory, fellow ASX-listed gold explorer, Middle Island is deep into a feasibility study looking to revive the historical gold mining and processing centre of Sandstone – something Venus could well benefit from in the future.

Last month’s Range View results saw investors push up Venus’ stock price 37 per cent in intraday trading and the market will no doubt be keeping a lookout over coming weeks for the results from this new round of drilling.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au