Bellevue Gold has validated its belief that the Bellevue project northwest of Leinster, WA, plays host to more exploration targets after its ongoing drilling campaign intersected visible gold well below the historical Bellevue Lode.
Adding to this, drilling also discovered a new Viago look-alike target immediately west of the high-grade Tribune Lode.
Management said a deep hole co-funded under the WA Government’s exploration incentive scheme, or “EIS”, to test for potential depth extensions under the historical Bellevue mine, intersected Bellevue style mineralisation with trace fine visible gold about 650m below the surface.
Notably, down-hole electromagnetic, or “DHEM”, surveys have highlighted significant conductive plates associated with the mineralised zone that are of comparable size to the Bellevue and Viago Lodes.
Assays for this hole are currently pending.
The second of two holes under the EIS program also intersected the interpreted continuation of this deep mineralisation about 320m to the south.
Bellevue has added a fifth diamond rig to allow step out testing of this new deep structure and its associated DHEM conductive plates.
Meanwhile, company drilling to the west of the Tribune Lode intersected a new flat-lying Viago look-alike target with the first hole returning a 4m intersection grading 8.3 grams per tonne gold from 254m down-hole.
A second step out hole drilled about 80m to the north intersected a 1.8m wide zone with abundant visible gold.
Extension drilling also continues to be a success for the company with the Tribune Lode strike length now extended by a further 300m to 1.3kmm, which is double the current resource envelope.
Recent results include 3.2m @ 17.2g/t gold from 75.2m down-hole, 4.5m @ 4.8g/t gold from 172.5m, 2.7m @ 22.6g/t gold from 146.4m and 3.6m @ 12.2g/t gold from 24.7m.
The Tribune Lode remains open along strike in both directions and drilling is continuing on both the northern and southern extensions.
Drilling at the Viago Lode has also expanded its footprint by another 140m to the north with recent holes returning 3.2m @ 13.8g/t gold from 409.6m down-hole, 3.5m @ 13.4g/t gold from 528m and 4.1m @ 6g/t gold from 406.5m.
The total strike at Viago has doubled to 1.4kmm from the strike of 750m, which hosted the original JORC-compliant inferred mineral resource of 550,000 ounces of gold, while also remaining open in both directions.
Step out drilling on all target areas is ongoing with rigs targeting resource extensions.
The company also expects to release an upgrade to the current resource of 1.5 million contained ounces grading 11.8g/t gold in the second quarter of this year.
Bellevue Managing Director Steve Parsons said: “The potential for an extension beneath the historic Bellevue mine to host a significant continuation of the mineralised system has been the major exploration target at the project since Bellevue Gold commenced exploration.”
“It is a significant scale target and with no previous drilling completed beneath the 500-550 metres below surface level … the exploration team is highly encouraged to hit Bellevue style mineralisation and visible gold in the first hole completed.”
“It is also extremely pleasing that we have discovered the next high-grade lode to the west of the Tribune lode which is in a flat-lying orientation similar to the very high-grade Viago discovery last year. This new lode again reinforces the potential for further discoveries to be defined as we move out from the known Lodes to date.”
“It is a sign of the quality of the Bellevue gold project in general that ongoing exploration continues to define new high quality and significant scale targets and maintain discovery momentum as increased step-out drilling is conducted at the project.”
The Bellevue project benefits from proximity to existing infrastructure such as grid power, flights via Leinster, sealed roads, water and services at the Leinster, Leonora and Wiluna townships.
Whilst the main Bellevue lode produced around 700,000 ounces of gold at half an ounce to the tonne before it ceased production in 1997 due to low gold prices, the company believes that a significant amount of mineralisation was left unmined.
This view continues to be validated by the string of exploration successes that Bellevue has enjoyed to date and the upcoming resource upgrade could well be a handsome one for the company.
