WA-focused gold and lithium explorer Aruma Resources is firing up the drill rigs in the second half of 2021 with maiden drilling programs planned for prime locales in the Pilbara and south of Norseman. The work includes keenly anticipated follow-up drilling at the emerging Saltwater gold project, south-east of Paraburdoo.
Aruma has budgeted for 9,000 metres of drilling at four key targets in its aggressive 2021 field season plan and enters the period well-funded with about A$2.8 million in the bank.
That includes maiden 3,000m programs at Melrose near Australian gold major Northern Star Resources’ operating Paulsens mine in the west Pilbara and at South Scotia, about 60km south of Norseman, one of WA’s most significant historical gold-producing hubs.
The planned 2,000m of follow-up RC drilling at Saltwater will pursue widespread gold anomalism picked up at either end of a 4km-long trend just off the key regional Nanjilgardy Fault crustal suture. More than a quarter of the 40 holes drilled late last year in a 4,518m RC program returned gold values over 0.3 grams per tonne and the work confirmed the presence of a supergene blanket more than 200m wide at the northern end of the project where up to 1.26g/t was hit by the shallow drilling.
Aruma is kicking off its field season with geophysics and geochemical programs, mapping and soil sampling to fine tune its drill targeting, however it expects to be on the ground drilling next month.
Management says its earlier work that unearthed a potential new gold camp at Saltwater generated strong targets for second-phase drilling. They said the upcoming drilling at two target areas at the northern and southern end of the identified 4km trend would “follow-up and test stratigraphic and increasing grade trends from the first-pass program”.
Saltwater is at the southern end of a “corridor” stretching north-west up to Northern Star’s plus-1-million-ounce Paulsens deposit and featuring Kalamazoo Resources’ 1.65 million-ounce Ashburton project near Paraburdoo. Aruma has more than 1,000sq.km of leases covering Saltwater and the neighbouring Monster gold find.
It has also expanded its tenement block at Melrose through new exploration licence grants: it now has eight licences and four more pending over a 200sq.km area adjacent to and surrounding Paulsens. Aruma says its ground hosts at least 13km of key regional stratigraphy and structure and its highest priority target, Gossan Hill, within the “Paulsens Corridor” has produced surface and deeper geophysical signs common to its high-profile neighbour.
The company is also keen to get on the ground at Scotia South where it has another 200sq.km tenement block over what is seen as an extension of the world-class Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt.
Further north on the belt Pantoro continues to go hammer and tongs at Norseman, where it has made recent gold discoveries at Panda and Green Lantern.
Aruma says its geophysics has identified strong anomalies on structures, including “major north-east sutures” similar to those linked to Pantoro’s Panda find. It says Scotia South has only been partially drill-tested for gold, but historical drilling by Pan Australian in the 1990s identified soil anomalies in one of Aruma’s three initial high-priority target areas.
The company plans to drill five lines of six RC holes in its 3,000m initial program.
Its drilling in the second half of 2021 will also include 1,000m of RC at Mt Deans, 10km south of Norseman, where previous work in a small area identified swarm pegmatites over more than 1km of strike.
Aruma says its drilling will test an interpreted “high-grade cauldron” below previous shallow drill intercepts.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
