The origins of the classic quote, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”, are not entirely clear.
But regardless of whether it was American educator Thomas H Palmer or iconic United States writer and actor W.C. Fields, the sentiment often rings true in exploration. Then again, if you actually DO succeed, there is definitely no harm in trying again anyway – as Warriedar Resources proved last week.
After featuring in this column in May following the unveiling of some good gold hits from its Golden Range project in Western Australia’s Murchison region, the company is back again with some eye-catching results from the same plot.
So, let’s dive in.
Golden Range Project – Murchison region, Western Australia
Hit: 19m at 4.94 grams per tonne gold from 188m
Warriedar Resources nailed the headline hit, which includes a contiguous final reverse-circulation (RC) result of 4m at 14.49g/t gold from 188m, and three other decent runs in its maiden diamond drilling of the 2.3km-long Ricciardo deposit within its Golden Range project in WA’s Murchison region.
The next-best intercept was obtained about 175m north of the headline hit, with 12m going 6.98g/t gold from 110m including 3m running 22.12g/t gold from 112m. The other two holes have thrown up 16m at 2.3g/t gold from 110m and 17m at 2.38g/t gold from 273m, each with good supportive included intercepts.
The company’s planned 2200m diamond-core (DC) program at Ricciardo is the first diamond drilling at the site since three holes were put in by the previous operator in 2014. About 5030m of RC and 1420m of DC drilling have already been completed in this program and apart from the above results, the remaining analyses are awaited.
The Ricciardo zone sits in the middle of the 25km-long “Golden Corridor”’ at Golden Range, which hosts six discrete deposits made up of 18 historic pits that are all open at depth and show immediate growth potential.
Ricciardo once came under the moniker “Silverstone”, presenting as just one discrete area of workings in a string of named workings arrayed along the 2.3km strike of the trend – all of which have now been merged into the bigger overall resource area.
The names of the original workings are still used for convenience to identify their positions along the trend and include Silverstone North at the top end through Ardmore, Copse, Silverstone, Silverstone South and Eastern Creek in the south of the gentle arc of historic workings.
The Ricciardo gold system, which currently comprises the most significant part of Warriedar’s Golden Range project, has seen only limited drilling below around 100m depth. The current program is part of the company’s mission to infill and extend its knowledge base and ultimately the resource along the entire strike of the new Ricciardo system.
The deposit boasts a mineral resource estimate of 8.7 million tonnes at a grade of 1.7g/t gold for 476,000 ounces. Much of the soft gold-bearing oxide material at Ricciardo has been mined by previous operators.
Results from the first four diamond holes extend the high-grade shoot below the Silverstone North pit and also infill a previous gap in the high-grade zone of the mineral resource below the northern part of the Ardmore pit, adding confidence and continuity to the mineral resource in the northern part of the Ricciardo trend.
While the early results pertain to just a small part of the current phase of drilling, they continue to highlight the outstanding resource growth potential at Ricciardo and ultimately, look set to demonstrate similar outcomes along the entire Golden Corridor trend.
Jericho-Eloise copper project – Cloncurry, Queensland
Hit: 3.9m at 1.77 per cent copper, 0.32g/t gold from 453m.
With enough hits to make any prospector sing at a waterhole, AIC’s deep diamond drilling at its Swagman shoot has defined copper-gold mineralisation through an 800m strike, about 500m north of its Matilda lens.
The headline hit also intercepted 2.1m at 2 per cent copper from 483m and is supported by two other holes in the same campaign to sniff out Swagman’s northward plunge potential.
One of those two holes turned in 2m at 3.39 per cent copper, 1.01g/t gold and 5.12g/t silver from 549m and a separate deeper intercept of 3m at 1.48 per cent copper, 0.38g/t gold and 1.23g/t silver from 588m. It was the deepest hole put in down-plunge at Swagman and at this stage, mineralisation remains open below that level.
They may not be the biggest copper hits around, but they do tell a story of a new discovery that went from a geophysical anomaly late last year to looking like a new and important shoot with major implications for the company in the space of a mere handful of follow-up drillholes.
The new high-grade Swagman shoot was initially inferred from a diamond hole drilled in September last year to test a geophysical conductor 1.8km north of the Jericho mineral resource area that jagged 9.8m going 2.1 per cent copper from 491.15m. The follow-up campaign comprised seven diamond drillholes put in for a total of 2927m, principally to determine up and down-dip extensions at Swagman, and both copper grades and widths appear to rise with increasing depth.
Importantly, Swagman’s top 150m up-plunge has yet to be infilled to see what is going on under the surface sediment cover.
Increasing evidence for a northward plunge at Swagman is consistent with the same plunge noted at Matilda and near its vent shaft, the northernmost extent of Matilda drilling. The same or similar plunge directions and angles are evident at both Squatter and Jumbuck, centred about 500m and 1500m south of Matilda, respectively.
While mineralisation remains open north of Matilda and south of Jumbuck, the limits of which essentially define the current Jericho mineral resource trend, the rapidly-evolving prospectivity at Swagman suggests strong potential for it to close the Matilda-Swagman gap and significantly bolster the resource potential of the Jericho trend.
With Jericho only 4km south of AIC’s operating Eloise copper mine, any serious resource development of the Jericho belt could transform Eloise into a flagship asset for the company, increasing production and project life, while reducing operating costs through economies of scale and with multiple ore sources de-risking production. And if Swagman can be shown to develop even further north, it might also confirm a separate trend parallel to the Eloise mine structures, further increasing its importance.
Eloise is a high-grade operating underground mine 60km south-east of Cloncurry. It began production in 1996 and has yielded about 350,000 tonnes of copper and 175,000 ounces of gold.
AIC aspires to produce about 12,500 tonnes of copper and 5000 ounces of gold in concentrate per year.
Management says it is planning more drilling at Swagman, possibly from underground via the Eloise-Jericho link drive, to explore further down-plunge at Swagman and to infill the 500m of prospective strike between Matilda and Swagman that is presently almost devoid of drilling.
It could almost be enough to make your billy boil.
Golden Crown Prospect – near Leonora, WA
Hit: 1m at 111g/t gold
Mt Malcolm Mines hit the jackpot for the week with its headline 1m intercept included in a 14m run at 16.78g/t gold from just 4m depth, which also included 6m going 36.75g/t.
That top value is also accompanied by a bunch of five more stellar responses from the company’s recent grade-control drilling at its aptly named Golden Crown project near Leonora.
Some might say that it is not too much of a surprise that such a string of results came from a 5m-by-5m or 8m-by-8m drill pattern comprising 18 holes in an already-defined potential high-grade resource occupying an area just 50m long and 15m wide that has been slated for bulk sampling. However, in any reasonable context, a string of six different drillholes with top intercepts containing numbers broadly between 6g/t and 38g/t gold in intervals ranging between 1m and 14m, is worthy of mention.
The second-best hit is 9m at 21.12g/t gold from 12m including 1m going 65.66g/t and 4m running 37.87g/t. From an intercept length-grade perspective, the sixth-best hit threw up 1m at 6.69g/t gold from 5m and 3m going 1.9g/t from 10m.
The Golden Crown drilling comprised 522m to test an area originally outlined by RC work in February, with hole depths ranging between 18m and 24m. Management says results confirm high-grade gold mineralisation in the area proposed for imminent bulk sampling.
Interestingly, the 24m maximum depth of drilling, the shallow, high-grade gold intercepts and the surface environment in the drilling area, all point to the mineralisation being partly or wholly within the oxidized zone. Those factors imply potentially low-cost excavation, but they also suggest the possibility for “bonanza-zone” secondary gold influences at or around current or ancient water table levels.
The latest results are in line with Golden Crown’s rich history and have made it a focal point for the company’s project development. Based on its February RC drilling results, which highlight the high-grade gold mineralisation, it says they provide a solid foundation for a robust maiden mineral resource estimate.
Historically, Golden Crown was a significant producer, yielding 1720 ounces of gold between 1899 and 1904. It features three shallow lodes that remain open down-plunge.
Mt Malcolm’s share price leapt nearly 43 per cent on the back of the news last Friday to an intraday trading high of 5c after a previous close of 3.5c, with almost 50 million shares traded – the biggest volume in the company’s history.
With the Australian gold price continuing to soar among its giddiest peaks, today hovering at about $3544 per ounce, it is certainly a good time for companies to be reporting decent grades – especially when they can produce a cluster of them running more than an ounce and up to 3.5 ounces per tonne.
Jervois project – Northern Territory
Hit: 7.44m at 7.49 per cent copper from 708.75m
KGL’s deep diamond drilling at its Jervois project produced this high-grade copper hit at its Rockface prospect and it includes 36.19g/t silver and 0.89g/t gold.
The primary intercept also features intervals of 0.73m at 10.83 per cent copper, 33.8g/t silver and 0.43g/t gold from 709.77m, 0.86m going 10.94 per cent copper, 51g/t silver and 0.64g/t gold from 713.30m and 0.47m at 18.91 per cent copper, 56.6g/t silver and 0.2g/t gold from 716.50m. A shorter primary intercept sits above the foregoing run, presenting 2m at 7.37 per cent copper, 41.12g/t silver and 0.38g/t gold from 617.16m.
The hole is one of 11 put into Rockface in a bid to increase management’s geological confidence in its mineral resource categories before a planned resource estimate update for the zone and all holes reported were aimed at infilling and testing its lateral extents.
The base metal mineralisation at Jervois is stratabound and contained within steeply-dipping lenticular bodies or lodes in metamorphic rocks disposed along a 12km-long arcuate strike and has a stratigraphic thickness up to about 600m.
KGL is focussed on its Rockface and Reward prospects, where it is using downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) geophysical surveying and follow-up diamond drilling. The combination has been delivering a steady run of high-grade intersections in extensive mineralised zones.
Downhole geophysical surveying has identified new conductors from which drilling is locating further high-grade mineralisation. The growing database continues to support the company’s interpretation of parallel North and Main lodes at Rockface.
At the Main lode, six holes targeted the upper part of the deposit to infill gaps before the next resource upgrade and to support potential upward extensions of the underground resource back towards the surface. Three of the holes cored through strongly-mineralised copper zones.
At the North lode, two holes put in to test a gap between the North and Main deposits, intersected mineralisation corresponding to both lodes, separated by about 50m of mostly unmineralised ground. The company says it has completed its resource infill drilling at Rockface and is now waiting on assay results, expected in the coming weeks, which will be incorporated into a mineral resource update.
Meanwhile, the biggest available rig onsite is now tasked with drilling two deep holes beneath Rockface North to explore the depth extension potential of the mineral resource where DHEM surveying has indicated mineralisation continuity. Once that work is completed, DHEM surveys will be undertaken in those holes to explore ahead for further deep extensions.
To date, the Jervois mineralised structures appear persistent, predictable and dependable, with a strong potential for producing multiple high-grade copper resource zones, sweetened up by gold and silver credits.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
