Auric Mining has drilled widespread sulphides and quartz veining over a 500m-long trend around an intensely-worked alluvial gold mine at Miitel South, near the abandoned WA town of Widgiemooltha.
The best result in assays from three RC holes covering 410m was 2m at 2.84 grams per tonne gold from 39m. The intersection had laminated quartz veining, up to 0.5 per cent pyrite and magnetite alteration and came from a zone of widespread quartz veining and disseminated pyrite.
Access was difficult for a truck-mounted rig and management now plans to complete the remainder of the eight-hole program with a track-mounted drill.
Drilling was conducted in February following work at the company’s Chalice West project. Only three of the planned eight holes were completed from the north side and into a large hill, which was the site of substantial historic alluvial gold operations. The 500m-long mineralised trend contains numerous old workings and trenches and is also defined by rock-chip and soil sampling.
Geological logging noted frequent quartz veining and trace to several per cent pyrite in the basalt rock in two westerly holes and rare quartz veining and trace to 1 per cent pyrrhotite in ultramafic rocks to the east.
Auric was established to explore for for gold and to develop the precious metal and other deposits in WA’s Widgiemooltha and Norseman areas. The company has 640 square kilometres of tenements over four project areas. At Widgiemooltha, its Munda deposit hosts a resource of 198,700 ounces of gold at a head grade of 1.38g/t gold.
The company’s Jeffreys Find project is 50km north-east of Norseman and includes a granted mining lease containing the Jeffreys Find gold deposit with a 47,900-ounce gold resource from surface. Mining and toll milling of the starter pit is underway with gold returns expected in September.
Management is seeking permits for the full mine development at Jeffreys Find and plans to use the free cash flow to continue exploration on its tenements in the area.
Auric may be focused on gold - and for good reason with several million- ounce-plus deposits in the area. But recent excitement on the Widgiemooltha Dome stemming from sulphide nickel finds by Dynamic Metals and Maximus Resources suggests wider blue-sky potential for Auric.
And adding an extra dimension to the sniffs of gold the company has picked up on, it also has confirmed separate nickel and rare earth elements anomalism at Chalice West.
Management today reported an RC drill hole (ACRC005) returning a 36m intersection running a healthy 1253 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) from surface, correlating with a 17m hit at 1699ppm TREO in another air-core hole.
The company also reported evident nickel anomalism in results highlighted by a 6m return grading 0.35 per cent nickel from 31m depth, drawn from ultramafic rocks down-dip from the air-core anomalism.
Notably, within that interval, the assays recorded a 1m intercept from 34m, which included 0.44 per cent nickel alongside 788ppm cobalt and an eye-catching 7366ppm TREO. Auric confirmed the nickel value recorded is the highest returned from the ACRC005 hole, while the cobalt and TREO concentrations are also considerably higher than all other cobalt and TREO values in the RC samples.
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By Terry Bates
