Brightstar hits high-grade WA gold extensions with drill bit

Recent RC drilling by Brightstar Resources at the company’s Cork Tree Well gold project 30km north of Laverton in WA has delivered high-grade extensions along strike from the project’s existing 252,000-ounce gold resource. Among an array of significant strikes a single hole returned standout intercepts of 5m going 9.46 grams per tonne from 103m and 4m running 2.56 g/t from 168m.

Other notable hits from the program include 11m at 2.54 g/t from 83m and 7m at 3.11 g/t from 119m.

The results come from a 31-hole RC program for 4750m located north of the project’s Cork Tree Well resource that Brightstar wrapped up in July as it looked to build upon the company’s earlier RC drilling program from 2021. The 2021 program returned a high calibre of grades including 1m going 20.32 g/t from 24m, 2m at 16.84 g/t from 96m and 16m at 3.26 g/t from 112m. The grades encountered were encouraging, however the earlier program was not able to constrain the extent of mineralisation to the north, motivating the explorer to launch its 2022 RC drilling program.

Its latest exploration efforts confirmed further extensions of mineralised lodes along strike of the current resource to the north whilst also continuing to show the Cork Tree Well ore body is open at depth.

Brightstar Resources Managing Director Bill Hobba said: “This round of drilling demonstrates further mineralisation continuity in this area that will likely improve the quality of the Resource when included in future models.”

Brightstar is eying further drilling to define the edges of mineralisation at the project and improve confidence in the northern part of its geological model. Its latest round of assays builds on results reported on Tuesday at the project’s Delta 2 prospect, just 2km north-east.

A dozen holes were drilled at Delta 2 and returned a series of high-grade hits including 2m going 6.05 grams per tonne gold from 29m, 1m running 5.31 g/t from 102m and 2m grading 2.42 g/t from 94m.

The anomalous intersections confirmed bedrock mineralisation over 300m along strike, however further drilling is required to determine the system’s scale as the lode has not yet been effectively closed off in any direction.

Whilst it is still early days, the explorer says its widely spaced gold intercepts bode well for a potential discovery of a significant mineralised system at the prospect. The company finds its results at Delta 2 highly encouraging given its proximity to the Cork Tree Well resource to the south-west that appears to still be growing.

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