ASX-listed gold and base metals hopeful, White Cliff Minerals, has uncovered a handful of significant, near-surface drill intersections from a small RC program undertaken a decade ago at its historic Reedy South gold project 40km north of Cue in WA’s rejuvenated Murchison goldfields. One of the more notable old intersections was an eye-catching 20m going 4.13 grams per tonne gold from just 2m.
The Perth-based explorer says data gathered from a desktop analysis currently being performed by consultants, Auralia Mining Consulting, will be used to estimate a maiden mineral resource for Reedy South that takes in the Pegasus and King Cole historical underground workings.
Auralia has been assembling and interpreting all historical exploration results incorporating 168 holes totalling about 9,400m of drilling. White Cliff says the historic drill data contains previously unreported high-grade gold intercepts from four RC holes drilled at the King Cole prospect at the northern end of the company’s 156sqkm project area.
That small round of RC drilling undertaken by previous private owner, Wakeford Holdings, back in 2010 threw up some high-grade intersections, most notably the 20m hit grading 4.13 g/t from 2m. That intersection also included a high-grade subsection of 3m at 11.33 g/t from 5m.
Other better intersections from the historical drilling 10 years ago were 4m at 9.51 g/t from 32m, 2m at 11.75 g/t from 38m and 6m at 2.68 g/t from 15m.
As part of the consultants’ due diligence work towards the maiden resource estimate, Auralia conducted a site visit to Reedy South recently. Two of the four rock chip samples it collected during the visit from the area around the old Pegasus shaft and trench returned encouraging gold values of 12.5 g/t within the trench and 1.98 g/t from waste near the shaft.
Reedy South sits less than 1km from Westgold Resources’ producing South Emu-Triton underground gold mine at the Reedy’s gold mining centre.
White Cliff’s project straddles the Reedy Shear Zone that hosts numerous high-grade gold deposits with vertical plunging mineralisation extending to depths of 500m.
White Cliff Minerals Technical Director, Ed Mead said: “The results from this small drilling program at King Cole are pleasing for two reasons – the grade (including from near surface) is always great to see, but as importantly, the drilling data provides further evidence that the mineralisation is near vertical at the King Cole and Pegasus prospects.”
“This is the same as what we can see going on at Triton-South Emu less than 600m up the road, and it gives us confidence of extending known mineralisation at depth through drilling.”
The company’s Reedy South tenements were held in private hands between 2000 and this month when White Cliff acquired them. A large portion of the historic drilling done at the project since 1984 was carried out by Homestake Australia and St Barbara Mines.
A 42-hole RC drilling program totalling 1,820m to infill historic holes on 10m-spaced drill lines along a strike length of 120m was completed by the private owners over the Pegasus workings in 2015.
Those holes were designed to define the footwall and hanging-wall contacts on both sides of the shear zone which averaged 20m in width. White Cliff says the drilling confirmed the historic high grades associated with the Pegasus deposit but did not test for mineralisation below 60m.
Notable assays from the shallow drilling five years ago were 12m at 5.26 g/t gold from 34m, 7m at 10.86 g/t from 30m, 5m at 6.41 g/t from 34m and 4m at 7.68 g/t gold from 36m.
According to White Cliff, there may be a regionally significant gold resource lurking deeper at Reedy South, particularly given the pedigree of gold orebodies in the area and in light of exploration being limited to surface prospecting, geochemistry and broad-spaced shallow drilling to-date.
Management is now planning a 2,000-3,000m RC and diamond drilling campaign at Reedy South targeting depth and along-strike extensions of known gold mineralisation at the Pegasus and King Cole prospects once the initial resource estimate has been finalised.
With a wealth of processing plants in the region within trucking distance and in the wake of a resilient gold price sitting at around A$2,650 per ounce, White Cliff may be tempted to take a first-pass look at possible toll treatment options in the event its first drilling program at Reedy South strikes paydirt.
No official historical gold production figures were recorded at the WA Department of Mines for the King Cole and Pegasus shafts, but one thing seems certain – there is gold there.
Is your ASX listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
