Strickland Metals has nailed more stellar gold hits from extensional drilling at the Warmblood prospect within its Horse Well camp near Wiluna in Western Australia.
The company has extended the high-grade mineralised plunge at the site by an additional 170m, with a drill intersection of 7.9m at 9.7 grams per tonne from 138.5m peaking at a grade of 22g/t across 3.2m. The latest finds have prompted management to believe that a “very large gold deposit may be emerging at Horse Well”.
New results released today also show that step-out drilling at the nearby Palomino gold deposit has jagged similarly high-grade numbers, including an intercept of 10m at 6.9g/t gold from a depth of 170m.
And the Warmblood deposit, one of the most advanced prospects within the Horse Well gold camp, has delivered additional solid results including 14.4m at 6g/t from 114m including a 7m section grading 10.6g/t and 5.2m at 3.1g/t with a 2.2m slice coming in at 7g/t.
It has not only extended the high-grade mineralisation down plunge by a further 170m, but also confirms that the system remains open at depth and along strike, suggesting that there may be even more significant gold deposits that are yet to be discovered. The deepest hit so far is just 140m from surface, with the latest drilling extending the depth by a further 46m, potentially making Warmblood amenable to open-pit mining.
Similarly, Palomino’s promising extensions of high-grade mineralisation to a further 150m along strike put it firmly in play to become another cornerstone deposit at Horse Well.
Strickland Metals managing director Paul L'Herpiniere (55520) said: “These results are very significant, not simply because they are strong intersections in their own right, but also because of what they are telling us about the Horse Well camp as a whole. The company has recently made significant progress in understanding the geology of this well mineralised area and, most importantly, now has a clear understanding of the major camp-scale controls on gold mineralisation.”
According to L’Herpiniere, the interconnected nature of the ore-controlling structures along the Horse Well antiform axis, which stretches for more than 4km, has now given the company confidence that the potentially big gold deposit may be emerging at site.
He also says that by studying the combined effects of deep weathering and historically shallow drilling, Strickland’s deeper drilling has now started to reveal the magnitude of the area, which until recently has been largely concealed.
Backing up its belief of a major discovery, the company says ongoing deep drilling has confirmed multiple high-grade mineralised shoots open at depth, revealing a clear geological pattern of stacked ore-shoots typical of Orogenic gold deposits such as Horse Well. Both diamond and reverse-circulation (RC) drilling is now continuing at Warmblood to test the northern extents and depth potential of the deposit.
Together with its recently-acquired and rapidly-expanding Rogozna project in Serbia – which has a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 2.96 million ounces of gold, 200,000 tonnes of copper and 360,000 tonnes of contained zinc – Strickland looks to be building a substantial gold inventory on the back of its twin approach to exploring for the precious yellow metal. With the current gold price at about $3684 an ounce and breaking all-time highs on an almost weekly basis, the company appears to be in just the right place at just the right time to make hay while the sun shines.
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By James Pearson
