Classic Minerals’ long held theory that the high-grade shoots cross-cutting the historic Lady Ada mine might be repeated just up the road at the Lady Magdalene prospect near Marvel Loch appears to be checking out.
The company has reported high grade gold mineralisation at Lady Magdalene in the same cross-cutting shoot style lodes that host similar bonanza gold grades in the Lady Ada open pit nearby.
The new drilling results include a 6.5m intersection grading 3.30 grams per tonne gold from 56.5m, including 1m @ 9.52g/t gold.
Other results include 10.6m @ 1.96g/t gold from 182.4m depth, encompassing 1m @ 16.4g/t gold.
Classic said that gold was clearly visible from both intersections and hosted in similar quartz vein sets and narrow shear zones previously observed at Lady Ada.
The intercepts validate Classic’s theory that analogues of the Lady Ada high-grade gold mineralisation occur within the adjacent and much larger Lady Magdalene resource, that was historically considered to be just a low-grade deposit.
Lady Ada produced over 27,000 ounces grading 8.81 grams per tonne for Sons of Gwalia during mining in 2003 and contained a significant coarse-grained, gravity-recoverable gold component in the high-grade shoots mined.
The satellite pit provided a significant sweetener to the lower-grade run-of-mine ore being processed from the Marvel Loch processing facility by Sons of Gwalia at the time.
Classic’s announcement is a technical success for CEO Dean Goodwin, whose intuition told him that more complex mineralisation controls were likely present at the Lady Magdalene deposit which contains similar host rock as Lady Ada.
The results will help refine a program of close-spaced RC drilling being proposed for Lady Magdalene in the June quarter which will further delineate the dip, plunge and general orientation of the high-grade structures being sought at Lady Magdalene and improve the three-dimensional interpretation of the ore system.
This will potentially increase the overall grade for the deposit and produce an updated mineral resource estimate supporting open pit optimisation work and feed into broader feasibility studies down the track.
Mr Goodwin said: “This is the first time that Lady Ada high grade orientations have been identified at Lady Magdalene. Our first two holes testing the “Lady Ada Orientation” theory have been successful in finding both analogous structural data and high grade gold – this is extremely encouraging and bodes well for the upcoming RC program given the success of the first two diamond holes.”
“This exciting new data confirms that the high grade Lady Ada deposit is not an isolated occurrence and that other high grade cross cutting gold lodes exist within the Lady Magdalene system. We now can see that this style of mineralisation is more prevalent than previously thought.”
The latest release indicates that there is considerable scope to increase the gold endowment and grade of the Lady Magdalene deposit, currently estimated to be 182,000 ounces grading a modest 1.32g/t gold.
Additionally, significant exploration targets exist to the south of the Lady Ada and Lady Magdalene deposits in the same dolerite host rock unit that have never been drilled tested.
With Classic recently announcing it has toll treatment options available up the road at Marvel Loch, the hunt is now on for near surface, high-grade gold deposits to bolster its short term cash flow position.
By Matt Birney
