Assay results from trenching at Xanadu Mines’ Red Mountain prospect in Mongolia have highlighted a broad zone of shallow gold mineralisation that the company argues has potential for extension at depth.
Xanadu says the latest assays combined with historical trenching results define a 350m by 80m zone of highly anomalous gold at its Target 33 prospect, including a higher-grade core greater than 1 gram per tonne gold.
Assay highlights include a 66m intercept at 0.37 g/t gold from 26m including an 18m hit going 0.83 g/t gold from 50m. The richer 18m section also includes a 10m hit at 1.23 g/t gold from 58m.
The latest results are from assays returned for 1170m of the 6500m of trenching at Red Mountain with the campaign set to continue to test additional targets for surface gold and copper mineralisation ahead of an upcoming diamond drill program.
The anomalous gold zone remains open to the west and will be investigated through a further drill program of stab holes designed to test approximately 50m below the target area in multiple sections.
Xanadu Mines Executive Chairman and Managing Director, Colin Moorhead said: “We are encouraged by this solid start to the Red Mountain trenching program. Initial results from T33 outline a zone of strongly anomalous gold (greater than 0.2g/t Au) at surface that extends for 350m along strike and 80m wide, and within this zone is a higher-grade core (greater than 1g/t Au).”
Red Mountain is located within the Dornogovi Province of southern Mongolia, approximately 420km southeast of Ulaanbaatar and 70km west of the provincial centre of Sainshand.
Xanadu says previous exploration at the prospect has defined several broad zones of strongly mineralised quartz stockwork veining associated with high-grade gold and increasing alteration strength, with the mineralisation style suggesting strong potential for depth extensions.
A previous diamond and RC drill program at the prospect uncovered impressive results at the site’s Bavuu and Diorite deposits with a number of hits from surface.
Highlights at the Bavuu target include a 6m hit going 21.57 grams per tonne gold from surface whilst one hole at Diorite recorded a 9.5m section at 21.06 g/t gold from surface including 3m reading an impressive 47 g/t gold from 2m. A second hole at Diorite discovered a 6m intersect at 15.43 g/t gold from the surface, including 1.2m going 21.34 g/t from 3.3m.
The previous drill campaign also recorded strong copper and silver results at Red Mountain’s Stairy target with a 4m section going 7.34 per cent copper and 29.3 g/t silver from 60m including 1m reading a massive 28.9 per cent copper and 114 g/t silver from 62m.
The project has a 30-year mining licence and comprises an underexplored porphyry district covering about 57 square kilometres.
Red Mountain sits to the east of Xanadu’s flagship Kharmagtai project that has a mineral resource estimate identified at a massive 1.1 billion tonnes for 3 million tonnes of contained copper and 8 million ounces of gold.
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By Matt Birney
