Meeka closes in on Circle Valley gold discovery

Gold and rare earths explorer Meeka Gold Limited is aiming to bolt on another gold discovery to match its flagship Murchison gold project. The company is continuing to drill out its Circle Valley project in the Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt in WA’s south with the aspiration of transforming the project into one to match the nearby Tropicana mine.

Meeka has backed up a regional air-core drilling program in March with a current, short program of 150 metre deep RC drill holes at the Anomaly A target, testing depths below the 1.2 kilometre by 400m zone of regolith gold the air-core drilling had defined.

Whilst there was a sizeable 24m intercept going 1.21 grams per tonne gold from 24m depth, a number of other holes yielded smaller yet richer zones.

Two notable results were a 16m section grading 3.06g/t gold, including 4m showing 10.80g/t gold and 10m grading 4.72g/t gold from 120m including 4m at 10.20g/t gold where the hole ends in continued mineralisation.

The company said the latest results sit along strike and down dip from previously reported results of 23m showing 5.09g/t gold from 13m including a 10m showing of 9.35g/t gold including 7m reporting 2.91g/t gold.

The higher-grade gold mineralisation has been mapped as sitting within a 10-80m thick zone of lower-grade mineralisation going greater than 0.1g/t gold that thickens and thins along strike and has currently been defined along a strike length of 700m. Notably, Meeka said the mineralisation remains open in all directions.

Management said much like the AngloGold Ashanti-run Tropicana mine, the mineralisation is hosted in gneiss within pyritebiotite shear zones with higher gold grades associated with k-feldspar alteration.

Meeka argues the results continue to support its theory the geology at Circle Valley is fertile for gold mineralisation with the project remaining vastly underexplored and is now the subject of systematic and focused exploration for the first time.

It added assay results for step-out holes to the north and west remain pending and drilling of additional step-out holes to the north is currently underway.

Meeka Gold CEO, Tim Davidson said: “The Company is encouraged by the data that is being collected during the drilling and sampling process as it continues to indicate similarities between the geology and alteration present at Circle Valley, and that which is present at the Tropicana deposit to the northeast (currently host to 4.9Moz gold Mineral Resource).”

“We look forward to updating shareholders with respect to this developing exploration story over the coming weeks.”

Meeka’s Murchison gold project covers a 343km² landholding in the prolific Murchison gold fields in WA’s Mid West region and hosts a large high grade 1.1 million ounce mineral resource. It continues to drill out the project that a December 2021 scoping study outlined a prospective 420,000 ounces of gold and a significant free cash flow.

The company also controls the Cascade rare earths elements project, covering over 2000km² in a region rapidly emerging as a highly-prospective ionic clay type rare earths province. Meeka said it intends to use its existing exploration kit in the area to continue fieldwork at Cascade.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au