Aruma Resources has unearthed a new target, with the company’s Rose prospect identified from its reverse-circulation (RC) drill campaign at its Salmon Gums gold project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region.
The Rose prospect was highlighted following positive results that include 1m at 2.3 grams per tonne gold from 27m. The new discovery sits between the company’s Thistle and Iris targets.
Drilling at Thistle returned solid results, including 1m going 1.3g/t gold from 46m and 1m grading 1.7g/t gold from just 6m. Iris delivered the best grade with an assay of 1m reading 3g/t gold from 71m.
The 44-hole campaign covered 5366m and also included a shallow 894-hole auger drill program, which was aimed at testing a bonanza intersection recorded early last year that delivered a 5m hit at an impressive 50.2g/t gold.
The company says the auger results also identified the potential for several new gold prospects in addition to detecting multiple rare earths soil anomalies, including cerium and lanthanum.
Aruma Resources managing director Glenn Grayson said: “As our understanding of the gold model at Salmon Gums increases, as a next step we plan to undertake targeted diamond drilling in several orientations, to follow up the bonanza gold intersection of 5m at 50.2g/t from our previous phase of drilling and to increase our understanding of what is controlling the high grade gold.”
Previous drilling and soil sampling at Salmon Gums highlighted a 4.3km mineralised envelope along the same greenstone belt that houses Pantoro’s high-grade Scotia mining centre, just 30km up the track.
The Scotia deposit churned out 811,000 tonnes at 5.9g/t gold for 155,000 ounces between 1987 and 1996 for Central Norseman Gold Corporation. Pantoro has since carved out a mineral resource of 15.5 million tonnes at 2.0g/t for 1 million ounces.
Aruma’s maiden drilling program last year produced some exceptional hits, including a 1m section grading a whopping 224g/t gold from just 44 metres and a 4m hit going 4.26g/t from 105m downhole, with an internal metre at 13.35g/t gold.
The company says it is adopting a systematic approach to its exploration of Salmon Gums. Based on the encouraging results of its ongoing exploration at the project, management plans to conduct targeted diamond drilling to follow up its previous bonanza gold intersection. This campaign will be designed to test the structure of the high-grade gold mineralisation around the massive 224g/t gold intersection, with plans to develop the geological and structural model at the operation to assist in defining targets for further drilling to extend its high-grade gold zone.
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By Michael Philipps
