Native Mineral Resources has successfully completed a four-hole diamond drill program and is set to deliver a thousand tonne bulk quartz gold vein sample to a toll treater from its Music Well project in WA with a view to determining the extent and grade of its exciting quartz vein target.
The 450-metre diamond drilling campaign tested the orientation and depth extensions of the vein to 30m, whilst also assessing the potential for parallel veins. The drilling was co-funded to the tune of $68,000 under WA’s government-backed Exploration Incentive Scheme.
The Music Well project is made up of two tenements covering an area of approximately 290 square kilometres in a high-priority part of the Yilgarn province, approximately 55km north of Leonora in WA. The intrusion-hosted vein-style gold mineralisation has been verified in high-grade historic open pits located only 20km west of the priority Music Well target areas.
Native Minerals is actively exploring several key target areas at the project that have been defined by previous exploration, including rock chip samples of up to an enviable 34.8 grams per tonne gold. The gold-bearing samples define a considerable 250m long zone trending northeast-southwest. The target vein is hidden by shallow cover at either end and the northeast and southwest extents dip under very shallow, 20-50cm soil cover, which means the full extents are yet to be mapped out. However, quartz veins crop out again several hundred meters along strike to the southwest suggesting the presence of an sizeable gold-bearing vein. Previous surface sampling of the vein by Native Minerals also served up high-grade gold including samples running at 100 g/t and 45.84 g/t.
Native Minerals was a successful recipient of the Geological Survey of WA’s competitive Exploration Incentive Scheme funding and has topped up cash up from its exploration coffers to complete the four-hole 450m diamond drill program and the surface-based quartz vein excavation campaign. Samples from both projects have been sent to the lab and the eagerly awaited results will be released soon.
The drill program was designed to test the depth, style and extension of the target vein in the host granites. All four holes were drilled to between 100 and 150m. Core logging and sampling is underway with visible sulphides and veining already causing excitement on site.
Native Minerals has been working hard on its prospective gold project area, re-defining the geology and it has been able to demonstrate the repeatability of high-grade samples collected by previous explorers. The company is confident the recent assay results on rock chip samples, including one sample exhibiting grades of over 100g/t gold, are evidence for a nuggety style gold vein system at Music Wells.
In addition to high grade rock chips, the company has trialled sampling of larger, 10-34kg rocks that were collected, crushed and a visual check for gold made after panning. Every one of the fourteen samples returned visible gold. The larger samples were used as a visual check only as a means of avoiding the sampling issues associated with small rock chips in “nuggety” veins.
Gold-in-quartz-vein sampling is notoriously difficult due to the nuggetty nature of the gold, so the company initiated a 1000 tonne bulk sampling program by excavating along a 130m section, which has just been completed. Excavations have revealed the vein retains a relatively consistent width of one to two metres. Material is currently being carted to the Golden Mile Lakewood processing plant where toll treating will commence and be completed within a week.
Native Mineral Resources Managing Director, Blake Cannavo said: “Our shallow excavation and sampling programmes have delivered highly encouraging gold grades to date, reinforcing the primary aim of the latest work streams to test this gold-bearing target structure at depth and to provide a more accurate and precise grade for the deposit.”
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By Matt Birney
