The first holes drilled into the Amy Clarke target in more than 25 years have yielded high-grade gold hits for Great Southern Mining from an air core drilling program at its Duketon Gold project, near Laverton in Western Australia’s goldfields.
Picked up by Great Southern in 2020, the Amy Clarke target has seen only scant exploration since the early 1990’s however it has quickly confirmed a third mineralised system for the company at its Duketon project.
One of the drill holes recorded an intersection of 5 metres at 8.2 grams per tonne gold including 1m at 33.5 g/t gold from 33m.
The 1m split and bottom of hole multi-element results came from a 5500m air core program of172. The company said the results revealed pathfinder elements suggestive of a large-scale mineralised system.
Other notable results that appear to support that belief include a 1m strike at 3.95 g/t gold from 47m, 3m going 1.5 g/t gold from 1m and 2m showing 1.1 g/t gold from 4m.
In 1996 Sons of Gwalia intercepted 3m grading 340 parts per billion gold in a mineralised quartz vein at the bottom of a 9m rotary air blast drill hole that was never followed up.
It noted the recent high-grade gold results discovered in the Amy Clarke area are similar to those found in gold deposits throughout the Goldfields and suggest the Amy Clarke orebody may turn out to be a significant discovery.
The company says the arsenic results from the air core intervals clearly mapped out a mineralised system over a strike length of approximately four kilometres and remains open.
Bismuth traces also correlated with the gold anomaly with concentration towards the centre ‘hotspots’, it noted.
Great Southern Mining Executive Chairman, John Terpu said: “GSN acquired this tenement in mid-2020 and at that time, the tenement had not been subject to any significant drilling or on ground exploration since Sons of Gwalia undertook shallow RAB drilling in 1993.”
“GSN is effectively the first Company to drill the Amy Clarke area and we are proud of the geological team who have spent the last year progressing this area from a conceptual target to an area that has intersections of high-grade gold, open at depth and along strike which has already been mapped to a strike length of 4km.”
The company says only a thin veneer of around 0.5m-10m of cover is typical throughout the Amy Clarke area and the majority of gold intersections are within highly sheared mafic bedrock.
Drillhole 21ACAC147, where the 8.2 g/t gold hit was recorded, was one of only 24 holes of the program drilled deeper than 40m, with Great Southern saying deeper drilling is required to delineate the mineralised system at Amy Clarke. A near-term follow up drilling program now appears highly likely.
Amy Clarke is just one of the three targets Great Southern is proving up as part of the Duketon project, the other two being Southern Star and Ogilvies.
Southern Star is located 4 kilometres along strike to the south of Regis Resources’ Ben Hur Deposit and 32km south of Garden Well Mill which, in 2021 yielded some impressive numbers including 17m going 7.0 g/t gold including 2m grading 56.7 g/t gold and 1m at 109 g/t gold from 111m.
Ogilvies returned 8m going 2.1 g/t gold including 4m showing 3.7 g/t gold.
Great Southern says geological mapping by consultant Outcrop Exploration is underway to review the anomalous trends and further refine regional target areas. Once completed, it is intended this review will form the basis of a follow-up drilling program.
With Duketon having produced three mineralised systems for Great Southern in little time, the company seems keen to build up the pace in what is an increasingly compelling exploration program.
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By Matt Birney
