Kingwest Resources has drilled 107 holes at its Sir Laurence gold discovery near Menzies with significant “bedrock” mineralisation reported on every line over a 1 kilometre trend that remains open along strike and down dip. Diamond coring operations have commenced with initial results expected before Christmas. The company anticipates assays from a remaining 63 holes will also arrive in time for some holiday cheer.
The Sir Laurence gold discovery is buried under Lake Goongarrie to the north of Kalgoorlie. It has a well-defined aeromagnetic anomaly allowing the company to tightly target the mineralisation trend and Kingwest has now completed 8,821 metres of drilling across the 107 holes and an additional 32 regional holes for 1,245m on potential extensions to the discovery.
Air core drilling has been moving at a brisk pace and assays are rolling in with significant intersections including: 2m at 1.6 grams per tonne gold from 76m in the last effective drill hole at the western end of one line, 8m at 0.7 g/t gold from 72m followed by 6m at 0.3 g/t gold from 80m in bedrock and 4m at 0.7 g/t gold from 84m. According to the company, every line drilled has delivered significant results over a strike length now surpassing 1km, revealing the remarkable size of the Sir Laurence mineralised system.
Results have been so encouraging the company extended the originally planned program by an additional 2,800m including an additional 14 holes. The additional holes delivered the goods with intersections of 28m at 1.9 g/t gold from 20m including 16m in bedrock and 12m at 2.0 g/t gold from 12m. Assays are pending for these intersections. Management says the company is intrigued by the apparent relationship between bedrock gold intersected on every line to date, the presence of well-imaged magnetic structures and interesting occurrences of “lobes of demagnetisation” within the targeted Black Flag Group rock unit.
Having completed the planned air core drilling campaign, Kingwest has pivoted its forces to tackle a 1,500m diamond core drilling march across Sir Laurence to determine the three-dimensional controls of the primary mineralisation. Coring operations will focus on mineralised bedrock to help define the geology of the discovery.
Kingwest Resorces Limited Chief Executive Officer, Ed Turner said: “To get significant gold intersections, including bedrock mineralisation, on every line drilled to date at Sir Laurence is exceptional. To date these cover a strike length of 1km and mineralisation is open in all directions. Some of our best results, such as 2m @ 1.6 g/t Au from 76m in KGA067O, have been at the end of drill lines and therefore there remains a lot of additional drilling required before the limits of mineralisation are defined. We now look forward to seeing what the diamond core drilling intersects and anticipate initial results before Christmas. We also look forward to the assay results from the remainder of the Sir Laurence holes and the regional holes.”
With two major projects at Menzies and Goongarrie, Kingwest has its hands full as it looks to define mineable resources on its significant acreage across both projects. Its Menzies tenements cover a strike length greater than 15km on trend with a series of structurally controlled high-grade gold deposits mined previously. The company has revealed strong indications of the potential for additional high-grade gold discoveries using modern exploration techniques for the first time since the old mines closed over 20 years ago. The Menzies gold trend has previously yielded 787,200 ounces at 18.9 g/t gold.
Kingwest Resources has proven a JORC mineral resource at Menzies totalling 475,100 oz at 1.35 g/t gold using a cut-off of 0.5 g/t or 346,100 oz at 2.06 g/t gold using 1.0 g/t gold cut-off. All resources are 100 per cent owned by Kingwest within granted mining leases along the Goldfields Highway with grid power and water numerous gold processing plants within cooee within the region.
At Goongarrie, only 90km north of Kalgoorlie, Kingwest holds 125 square kilometres over a strike length greater than 25km. A series of structurally controlled high-grade gold deposits have been historically mined on trend with the company's tenements.
First pass aircore drilling back in February this year returned some stellar gold intersections at Goongarrie including 6m at 17.2 g/t gold from 94m within 38m at 3.1 g/t gold from 62m and 4m at 2.5 g/t gold from 74m within 8m at 1.3 g/t gold from 74m. Follow up RC drilling intersected 20m at 2.55 g/t gold including 8m at 4.94 g/t gold from 72m, 4m at 2.18 g/t gold from 64m and 8m t 1.43 g/t gold from 44m. Notably the results are within 7km of Bardoc Gold's 1.7 million ounce Aphrodite deposit.
With new diamond core drilling results expected to arrive soon along with a swag of assays from it's now completed aircore drilling campaign on Sir Laurence and regionally, Kingwest will be peppering the market with numbers as the festive season approaches.
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By Matt Birney
