Great Southern Mining has fired the starting gun on a major West Australian gold hunt, with reverse circulation (RC) drilling now underway at its Mon Ami project near Laverton.
The campaign signals the start of a broad program of up to 20,000m across the company’s WA gold assets and is the biggest drilling push Great Southern has launched since picking up its Duketon ground in 2021.
Mon Ami sits 12km south of Laverton on a granted mining licence and already carries a JORC 2012 mineral resource of 1.56 million tonnes at 1.11 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 55,500 ounces. The project also lies within trucking distance of several operating and emerging gold processing plants in the district.
The first round of drilling will comprise up to 3000m and is expected to take three weeks. It will chase extensions to known mineralisation within the existing resource and test targets 250m north of it.
Great Southern is particularly interested in Mon Ami’s position on the Barnicoat Shear, a significant structure that also hosts gold deposits to the north, including the Barnicoat and Ida H mines now held by Genesis Minerals. Management says the deposit remains open to the north, northwest and down dip, giving the drill bit several clear places to go.
Previous gold intercepts at Mon Ami include 10m at 2.7g/t gold from 241m, including 5m at 5.2g/t, and 2m at 25.1g/t gold from 173m. The new holes will also test a northern target where earlier shallow work returned intercepts including 2m at 4.8g/t gold from 70m and 2m at 3.23g/t from 100m.
Once the Mon Ami program is complete, the rig is scheduled to roll straight to Great Southern’s 100 per cent-owned Duketon gold project, starting at Golden Boulder, where mineralisation has already been outlined over 3.5km. It will then move to Amy Clarke, where drilling has mapped gold over 4.7km, with both discoveries still open along strike and at depth.
A recent diamond hole at Golden Boulder also extended known mineralisation 40m down dip, including a 2m intercept assaying 1.81g/t gold from 38.5m, helping Great Southern refine its understanding of the structures controlling the gold.
The company says the planned drilling is fully funded following the settlement of the final tranche of a $4.6M equity placement in early June. Its March quarterly showed the company held $5.64M in cash.
With the drill rig engaged at Mon Ami and two larger Duketon discoveries waiting in the queue, Great Southern has given itself plenty of scope to see how much more gold its Laverton ground can deliver.
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By Doug Bright
