Aruma gets green light to kick off drilling

Perth-based junior explorer Aruma Resources is set to get boots on the ground after receiving the green light to kick off drilling at its Salmon Gums gold project in WAs prolific Norseman goldfields. The company plans to undertake a maiden 3,000 metres RC program at the project, located 30 kilometres south and along strike of JV partners Pantoro Limited and Tulla Resources’ Scotia gold discovery.

Encouragingly for Aruma, the nearby Scotia project recently produced a slew of shallow, high-grade results from a new discovery with an eye-catching 14m at 12.84 grams per tonne which included 2m at a whopping 68.15 g/t from 34m.

Aruma has strategically expanded its land holding over the greenstone belt with an additional 20 square kilometres being granted covering the south-western extension of the identified prospective strike.

The company has planned a total of 30 RC holes over five lines of drilling testing a series of gold-in-soil anomalies and coincident gold-arsenic anomalism along an identified banded iron formation. The juncture between the banded iron formations and apparent north-east trending fault zones have also been identified as priority drill targets.

Pan Australia did some work in the area in the late 1990’s and uncovered 7m at 2.74 g/t gold which surprisingly was never followed up. The intercept lies within a gold-in-soil anomaly and now represents a high priority drill target for Aruma.

Aruma previously said the historical drilling data shows the geochemical work done to trace the gold anomalies was effective and backs up the company’s exploration model for the project.

Along with gaining the required statutory approvals, Aruma said it has also negotiated access agreements with private land holders covering the high priority drill targets.

Drilling is slated to commence in October with site preparations currently underway. The company is reportedly continuing additional land access negotiations to facilitate further access to other identified anomalous areas.

Aruma first hit the drilling scoreboard earlier this year with an inaugural RC program for an aggregate coverage of 4,518m at Saltwater that vectored in on the auriferous Saltwater dome - a 60 square kilometre magnetic and airborne electromagnetic-defined domal structure.

The company reported it has now been granted a contiguous exploration licence area that covers the potential new electromagnetic Spinifex domal structure north-west of the fertile Saltwater dome or ring structure.

Aruma says Spinifex is similar in size to the Saltwater ring structure and will be a target for future drilling. It has been mapped on the Mt McGrath-Duck Creek dolomite contact with the same stratigraphy in the region as the Mt Olympus gold deposit which hosts a resource of 2.5 million tonnes at 3.0 grams per tonne for 242,000 ounces of contained gold.

Not one to sit on its laurels, Aruma is also gearing up to sink an initial 12 RC drill holes totalling 1,000m into the Mt Deans lithium project about 10km south of Norseman.

With the drill rods ready to spin across the company’s pipeline of key projects in Western Australia, punters can look forward to a steady stream of results from the junior explorer in what looks set to be a busy last quarter to the calendar year.

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