West Australian-based explorer Kairos Minerals has unveiled a promising new greenfields gold target at its wholly owned 873,500oz Mt York gold project in WA’s Pilbara region. Following on from a recent 15,000m drilling blitz at Mt York, Kairos continues to probe the prospectivity of its extensive Pilbara tenure with results from the latest surface geochemical program throwing out values up to 4.6 g/t gold.
A total of 392 specimens were collected at Mt York in a rock chip sampling program during the 2021 field season. Results have been received for 175 samples with the 4.6 g/t assays representing the highlight of the program that has extended the recently identified target area.
The second-stage geochemistry program was designed to follow up anomalous rock chip samples of up to 1.1 g/t gold that were coincident with an arsenic-in-soils anomaly trend which eked out the new target area known as the Steamboat prospect.
The new target is a mere 500 metres south-east of the established Old Faithful deposit.
Interestingly, despite the prospect’s proximity to known gold mineralisation, little historical exploration has been completed, with the area yet to feel the drill bit.
Kairos said a high-resolution drone survey was completed over the target area that has assisted with field mapping and enabled critical geological features to be observed that will assist with further mapping and drill-hole planning.
A heritage survey has also reportedly been completed over the area in preparation for a maiden drilling program ear-marked for the 2022 field season.
Kairos Minerals Executive Chairman, Terry Topping said: “The discovery of an exciting new gold target outside of the current 873,500oz Mineral Resource inventory at Mt York is a great way to tart the New Year. Given the proximity of the Steamboat prospect to the existing Old Faithful deposit and the strength of the surface rock chip samples and mapping, this is shaping up as a priority focus for our exploration activities at Mt York in 2022.”
Located some 100 kilometres south of Port Hedland, the Mt York tenure features three separate deposits that make up the existing gold resource base.
The dominant Mount York deposit in the southern part of the tenure boasts 697,000 ounces of contained gold. Further to the north, the Old Faithful and the Iron Stirrup deposits weigh in for another 175,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal.
Kairos smashed out the metres at the project with a total of 95 holes for 14,988m of drilling completed late last year.
Assay results continue to drip in, with industry wide slow turnaround times only exacerbated over the festive period.
Kairos reported results from five more reverse circulation drill holes with several considered “exceptional” by the company, including a thick 80m going 0.93 g/t gold from 108m that included 4m at a higher 6.16g/t gold.
Other encouraging intercepts comprise 56m at 0.99 g/t gold from 96m that contains a 4m intersection at 3.38 g/t gold and 28m at 0.85 g/t gold from 76m including 4m at 2.22 g/t gold.
The results are reported from four-metre composite tests with single-metre samples being collected and submitted to the laboratory for gold and multi-element analysis.
Management says the latest hits extend a remarkable historical thick intercept of 117.4m at 1.97 g/t gold some 50 metres down dip and assay results from a further 23 drill holes remain pending.
Kairos holds over 2000-square kilometres of tenure in the epicentre of the Pilbara gold rush where explorers are now scrambling to pick up any remaining ground. Its historical 117m mineralised drill hit would set market pulses racing if announced today – if Kairos can turn out any more numbers that look even similar to that intersection, it will be game on for this active junior explorer.
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