Aurum Resources is one step closer to beginning exploration on its Ryans Find gold project north-east of Southern Cross after signing a heritage agreement with the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Native Title Claimant Group.
The agreement is the first step in gaining heritage clearance for the site that will allow the company’s planned air-core drilling program to commence. The programme of works for the campaign has already been approved by the WA Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.
Once heritage clearance has been granted, Aurum will visit the site to inspect the outcrop areas, position drill collars and organise access tracks.
The Ryans Find project takes in about 237 square kilometres of tenure in the historical Mt Dimer gold mining hub along the Marda-Diemals Greenstone Belt. Aurum says the licence package contains more than 50km of strike length across a relatively unexplored greenstone belt close to historic gold mines and workings.
Historical mining in the region includes the Mt Dimer operation where more than 8000 ounces of gold grading 3.44 grams per tonne were produced in the 1990s. A JORC compliant resource of nearly 50,000 ounces of gold and about 90,000 ounces of silver has since been defined at Mt Dimer by its current owner, ASX-listed Twenty Seven Co.
Another ASX-listed explorer, Aurumin Limited has also returned numerous stellar gold hits at several prospects near Aurum’s ground, including 5m going 19.26 g/t gold, 7m at 7.55 g/t gold and 4m grading 48.69 g/t gold.
Ryans Find was initially explored for nickel by WMC in the 1970s and remained dormant for 20-30 years with little modern exploration conducted.
To the north of Ryans Find, Aurum recently confirmed that its flagship Penny South gold project is also prospective for nickel in addition to traces of silver and zinc after a significant review of historical data in the area.
The majority of Aurum’s exploration at the site has been for gold as the project sits near two high-grade gold deposits currently under development by ASX-listed Ramelius Resources. Aurum’s ground is situated along the same shear structure hosting Ramelius’ high-grade historical Penny West open pit and the more recently discovered Penny North underground deposit.
The remnants of the Penny West deposit lie just 510m north of Aurum’s ground and during the 1990s the ground produced 85,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 21.8 g/t gold.
The Penny North underground deposit immediately north of Penny West hosts 270,000 ounces at a similarly high grade of 20 g/t.
Considering the nearby deposits discovered close to both Ryans Find and Penny South, Aurum will be keen to get stuck into the next drilling phase to see what can be unearthed at the prospective projects.
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By Matt Birney
