Augustus Minerals is preparing to unleash the drill bit on a tantalising new high-grade gold target at its Music Well project near Leonora in Western Australia. The prospect, dubbed St Patrick’s Well, previously threw up surface sampling grades as high as 30.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.
The company expects drilling to restart once ground conditions improve, with a site inspection scheduled for next week. Three reverse circulation (RC) holes totalling 486 metres have already been completed at the company’s Clifton East prospect, leaving just one more hole before the rig heads to St Patrick’s Well. Samples from the trio of holes have been dispatched to a laboratory in Kalgoorlie, with assays expected in mid-to-late October.
The latest drilling at Clifton East was designed to follow up on a recent diamond drill hole that identified a new set of potentially higher-grade quartz-pyrite veins. The area has previously delivered a string of solid results, including one hole that delivered an 11-metre hit at 2.41g/t gold from 32m. A second hole produced a wider 34-metre intercept running at 0.83g/t gold from a similarly shallow 38m, while a third clocked a higher-grade intercept of eight metres grading 3.27g/t gold from 72m depth. The results from the earlier diamond drill hole are expected in the next two weeks.
The three new RC holes were drilled to "scissor" the existing mineralisation and test the frequency of these newly identified vein sets."Scissoring" drill holes refers to the common practice of drilling intersecting or angled fans of holes from different and often opposing angles when targeting a sub-surface geological body. The method can help clarify complex geometry, structural controls and true thickness when vertical or parallel drilling from a single orientation proves inadequate.
However, the real prize could be the next prospect in the queue, St Patrick’s Well, just 11.3km to the west of Clifton East, where the rig is headed once the ground dries out. The highly prospective target initially lit up the assay lab when the company picked up impressive rock chip results including 30.4g/t, 20.4g/t and 21.7g/t gold, littered across a now-defined 600m strike zone.
Geologically, St Patrick’s Well lies adjacent to the same major shear zone that hosts the Clifton East mineralisation and the historical 115,000-ounce Celtic gold mine to the west of the company’s ground. Augustus has planned an initial five-hole RC program to test the impressive surface results.
Augustus Minerals general manager exploration Andrew Ford said: “Nature is throwing up a few challenges at Music Well with 120mm of rain falling between early August and early September. We have a few creeks/drainages to cross along station tracks to access the drill sites and once they are saturated, they take a while to dry out sufficiently to allow trucks through. The current RC program started well, and we hope to re-commence drilling within the next fortnight.”
The company's busy run of activity comes as the Leonora-Laverton district finds itself in the middle of a corporate consolidation frenzy, headlined by Genesis Minerals’ proposed A$12.6 billion merger with Vault Minerals, aimed at creating a dominant WA gold producer right on Augustus’ doorstep. That kind of district-scale deal-making, coupled with Genesis’ stated appetite for third-party ore to feed its expanding processing hubs, puts a spotlight on any nearby explorer that can deliver high-grade ounces.
Notably, multi-billion-dollar producer Gold Fields subsidiary G Ex Australia recently placed a bet on Augustus, emerging as a 5.33 per cent shareholder after the company's May placement. This potentially gives the global miner a strategic foothold in Augustus' district-scale play in the heart of the prolific Leonora-Laverton gold belt.
The Music Well project covers a commanding 1242-square-kilometre footprint in the prolific Leonora-Laverton Greenstone Belt just 30km north of Leonora, a region with a gold endowment of more than 28 million ounces. It sits in good company, surrounded by major operating mines including Northern Star’s Darlot and Thunderbox operations, 12km to the north and 20km to the west, respectively and Genesis Minerals’ King of the Hills and Leonora gold camps 20km to the southwest.
While Music Well is the current focus, Augustus also holds the 840-square-kilometre Ti-Tree project in WA’s Gascoyne region, which is considered prospective for a suite of metals including copper, gold, lithium and rare earths. The company is also eyeing Papua New Guinea, with applications over the Mt Kare and Vanapa River projects in the highly prospective New Guinea Mobile Belt.
With a pipeline of assays on the way from both RC and diamond drilling, and a rig about to be unleashed on a target that is already showing ounce-to-the-tonne potential at surface, Augustus will be hoping the next flood it sees is a deluge of positive news.
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By Murray Ward
