With more than 20 million ounces of historical gold production, the Zuleika Shear west of Kalgoorlie is tiger country and Dampier Gold would appear to have the tiger by the tail. The company is about to plough 30,000 metres of targeted air core and RC holes into its gaggle of gold projects around the Goldfields region that are headlined by the Zuleika gold project.
Flush with around $6m in fresh cash in its saddlebags, Dampier will look to back up some prior high-grade gold hits made last year across its pipeline of prospects in the multi-million-ounce gold corridor around the Goldfields region.
Dampier says the $2.8m drilling campaign will be split roughly two-thirds RC drilling and one third AC drilling as it vectors in on multiple significant gold systems.
Dampier’s ground straddles the Zuleika shear zone and the Bardoc Tectonic zone, both of which play host to world-class gold mines and other historical auriferous structures currently being worked up by a bevy of small-cap gold hopefuls like Perth-based Dampier Gold.
Dampier Gold Managing Director, Annie Guo said: “We are excited to commence the highly anticipated 2021 exploration program, with the primary objective to define and extend commercially viable JORC compliant resources and proceed rapidly to further development and to convert the Company from an explorer to a producer.”
“Following intensive geological field work including the extensive exploration in 2020, analysis of historical drilling, soil surveys, field mapping and target generation, the Company has developed a well-thought-out exploration program of +30,000 metres, designed to target new discoveries within our highly prospective 230km2 of tenure, on the world class Zuleika Shear.”
Dampier’s four key project areas in the gold-rich terrane include ground positions at Menzies, Goongarrie, Credo and its flagship project on the Zuleika shear.
The current drill program is targeting new resources and extensions to existing JORC compliant resources, particularly the Credo and Zuleika projects. Dampier will also chase anomalous auger results at Goongarrie and Menzies with an AC rig.
The Credo gold project, lying 35km north-west of the Kalgoorlie mining centre, is a joint venture between Dampier and Torian Resources. Credo sits immediately to the north-east of Dampier’s flagship Zuleika gold project and has two main targets, namely Credo Well and Credo Well North.
Interestingly, the Credo project also sits a mere 8km to the west of the multi-million-ounce Paddington gold mine, with artisanal mining across the region’s outcropping gold-rich quartz reefs dating back to the late 1800s.
Whilst Credo already has a touch over 12,000 ounces of contained gold across two deposits, Dampier will test multiple, en-echelon mineralised structures with a view to amalgamating a commercially viable resource in that region.
At Zuleika, Dampier said the JV with Torian is targeting the historical Paradigm East prospect which was originally discovered back in the 1990s by Dominion Mining. Paradigm East contains some high-grade supergene zones of up to 7m at 9.8 grams per tonne gold from 42m, including 2m at 30.9 g/t.
The best result from the 2020 AC drill campaign at Paradigm East was 24m at 6.4 g/t gold from 28m, including 4m at just over an ounce to the tonne, or 34.7 g/t gold, from 32m.
The Browns Dam prospect contains a zone of interpreted ultramafics sitting along the Zuleika Shear which Dampier said is a major regional gold host. WA’s Eastern Goldfields are well endowed with uber-rich gold deposits hosted in Archean-aged ultramafic rocks, otherwise known as ‘greenstone belts'.
The best composite intercepts so far from the 2020 drill campaign at Browns Dam are one hit of 5m of 3.1 g/t gold from 38m, including 1m at 6.60 g/t gold from 42m and 1m at 5.23 g/t gold from 39m. A second drill hole recovered 2m at 0.85 g/t gold from 51m that included 17m at 0.33 g/t from 40m.
Previous work at the Big Hand-Kurrawong target at Zuleika Central hit mineralized zones running parallel to the Zuleika shear with one hole drilled previously returning a single metre grading a whopping 50.4 g/t gold.
The uniquely named Carnage Shear sets up the north-eastern boundary of the ancient geological feature which Dampier’s technical team says prevents the hydrothermal fluids from migrating and therefore concentrates the gold mineralisation in the corridor being targeted by Dampier.
Dampier Gold Executive Chairman, Malcolm Carson recently said: “With more than 20Moz of historical gold production, the Zuleika Shear is one of the most sort-after gold regions in Australia.”
Dampier is going all-in on its theory that the Zuleika sheer will make it famous, just like it has done for a bevy of other players out there over the years – so much so that it intends to change its name to Zuleika Gold Ltd – hey why not ….
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
