King River onto top-end gold in two new zones

King River Resources has discovered two new zones exhibiting high-grade gold from its phase-one, 28-hole reverse-circulation (RC) drill program recently completed for 1986m, at the company’s Kurundi project in The Northern Territory’s Tennant Creek region.

A phase-two campaign is already underway to further interrogate the new finds, with one zone sitting in the Kurundi Main Central area and the other about 250m to the south.

Management says it has struck a new gold zone south of the Kurundi Main’s Central area that contains alteration, shearing, quartz and a mix of massive and blebby sulphides, with the zone remaining open at depth and to the south.

Solid results from the RC campaign comprised 9m at 1.62 grams per tonne gold from 49m including a high-grade 1m going 12.75g/t from 53m in the new southern zone and a 3m slice grading 8.3g/t from 35m that included a 1m high-grade hit of 16.25g/t gold from 36m at the Central main area.

A further 5m hit in the Central area going 2.14g/t gold from 38m included 1m going 6.39g/t from 40m.

Interestingly, the company says the other new gold zone it intersected was close to gold first discovered in 2022, may present a unique style of mineralisation and is found on the porphyry-basalt contact at the footwall to the Central main zone, that it first thought to be a possible sampling error. It arranged for re-assaying of the pulps which confirmed the presence of the shiny yellow metal.

An impressive 2m hit grading 10.93g/t from 51m included a 1m at a stellar 20.75g/t. It plans to investigate this contact between the host basalt rock and the porphyry intrusive with various forms of analysis to obtain a better understanding of the possible orientation of a mineralised zone and to determine further targeting work to assess the potential to increase its new gold find.

The company says it encountered further gold in the northern area with 2m at 5.11g/t gold from 44m including 1m at 6.33g/t from 45m, which was drilled below a previous 2m hit going 1.28g/t. This area will be included for additional deeper drilling in a planned phase-two program.

Recent deeper drilling at the Central main area consisted of four holes to a depth of 65m, with all holes intersecting alteration and veining confirming its continuation at depth. One hole that returned 10m running 0.32g/t gold with a 1m section showing 0.98g/t from 68m remains open to the south and at depth.

Management believes the presence of strong veining and shearing at depth across the strike of the Central area warrants further deeper drilling. It says drilling at Kurundi’s regional targets of Millers and its Tarragans North and South prospects has been completed with assays pending.

The company has moved its drill-rig back to Kurundi where it will follow up on the new zone south of Central Main. It will continue with deeper drilling at Central Main and in its northern area and will look to extend the northern mineralised zone and investigate the new footwall discovery. It is also continuing with interpretation of its 2023 geophysical program and expects to generate new targets for the remaining areas to be drilled in the near future.

The company’s plan for its phase-one drill program was to test three main targets, which included both northern and southern extensions to Kurundi’s structure up to 1km from the Central Main area, conduct further drilling at the Central high-grade shoot discovered in 2022 and explore for deeper mineralisation under the Central main workings.

King River appears to have met its three phase-one drill objectives and it will be interesting to see what the phase-two campaign adds to the company’s rapidly developing story.

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