Horizon Minerals has extended deep gold mineralisation under its Penny West mine in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, and it will be just one of several targets dripping with the yellow metal that the company will further explore next year.
Management says it has also proven two distinct gold mineralisation styles at Kanowna South and intersected supergene gold up to 10 grams per tonne at Binduli. The results come from its recent reverse-circulation (RC) and air-core (AC) drilling program and two other prospects (Cannon North and Lakewood) are also being subject to geophysical reviews.
Penny’s Find, which sits about 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie, has a mineral resource estimated at 270,000 tonnes grading 4.99g/t gold, with 81 per cent in the indicated category.
In August, Horizon put in two additional RC holes at the project for a total of 746m of deep drilling to complement its resource expansion diamond coring program undertaken in May. The holes targeted the potential for a north-westerly down-dip extension of defined mineralisation at the north-western end of the existing small open pit, between about 260m and 370m vertically below natural surface level – and both holes intersected gold mineralisation.
The shallowest hole hit 2m going 1.27g/t gold from 305m downhole depth, while the deeper hole offered up an encouraging hit of 5m running a grade of 2.97g/t from 370m.
The result from the deeper hole supports the inferred down-dip extension of the deepest, most north-westerly and highest-grade zone of known mineralisation.
It is about 175m north-west of the existing end of the open pit, where a previous RC hole had unveiled 1.45m at 2.61g/t gold from 314.5m and an additional 3.2m at 4.10g/t gold from 318.3m.
At Kanowna South, about 5km south of the famed Kanowna Belle gold mine, Horizon says recent drilling of eight AC holes for 465m and 10 RC holes for 1074m yielded gold results from two distinct mineralisation styles – gold in black shales and gold separately hosted in thin quartz veins.
A black shale RC drill intercept returned 21m going 0.44g/t gold from 54m, while thin, high-grade quartz-vein mineralisation style shows results including 1m going 5.91g/t gold from 66m in one RC hole and 1m running 4.40g/t gold from 46m in another hole.
Importantly, other mineralisation in the first hole threw up the first known occurrence of fresh arsenopyrite mineralisation (up to 0.7 per cent) and fuchsitic mica at Kanowna South. The occurrence confirms the accompanying gold hit as a new, primary sulphide mineralisation style similar to the nearby White Feather mineralised trend, which was characteristic of the nearby historical Kanowna gold mining town.
Horizon Minerals chief executive officer Grant Haywood said: “Although early days, our Kanowna South gold prospect is starting to take shape, and discovering a strong sulphide link in some of the mineralisation could be a major turning point in our understanding of this prospect. We are also looking forward to further work on the conductor at Cannon, which lies immediately north and along strike of the proposed Cannon underground. In addition, follow up work at the Penny’s Find gold project should allow us to provide an updated Mineral Resource Estimate in the current December quarter, and carry out mine design and financial analysis for a maiden Ore Reserve in the first half of 2024.”
The company also has more gold on its explorational horizon for next year.
At the company’s Falcon prospect in the Binduli North area and 500m north-west of its Kestrel deposit, five AC holes for 219m of drilling yielded thin, high-grade mineralisation, with one hole intercepting 1m at 0.8g/t gold from 25m and 1m going 10.09g/t gold from 29m. A second hole next to the first intercepted 2m running 1.4g/t gold from 24m.
The gold hits are thought to be related to supergene enrichment processes and are believed to be worth following up. But more importantly, the near-surface enrichment could flag the presence of a nearby deeper primary origin, which will also require follow-up work.
At Cannon North, a single RC drillhole was put in for 180m depth, about 160m north-east along strike from the open pit, in a bid to confirm bottom-of-hole mineralisation noted in several historic holes that had been drilled parallel to the north-east Cannon trend. The RC hole was unable to confirm the old results, despite geophysics indicating a possible downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) conductor more than 50m below the drillhole’s target depth, but Horizon says it is now planning additional follow-up work.
At Lakewood, the company has reprocessed 17-year-old aeromagnetic and EM data and has generated new exploration targets to be included in next year’s work program. The work will also include the Cannon North DHEM follow-up, testing an old induced-polarisation (IP) anomaly at Rundle Dam, Kanowna South follow-up work and testing of a DHEM anomaly acquired last year at Golden Ridge South.
Horizon has a prolific collection of a wide variety of target styles on its plate and a lot of promising results to keep its exploration program occupied.
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By Doug Bright
