ASX-listed aspiring gold developer, Middle Island Resources, looks to have a new near-surface gold resource in the making at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA following more high-grade drill hits from the Plum Pudding satellite deposit.
Notable RC intersections from the latest round of drilling – totalling 62 holes – at Plum Pudding included 7m going an impressive 24.1 grams per tonne gold from 36m down-hole depth, 7m at 19.0 g/t from 36m, 12m at 7.22 g/t from 40m, 3m at 24.7 g/t from surface and 3m at 10.0 g/t from 30m.
They complement notable phase one and historic RC drill intercepts including 17m at 8.16 g/t from 33m, 11m at 22.5 g/t from 17m, 12m at 3.52 g/t from 34m, 8m at 6.98 g/t from 22m and 10m at 3.08 g/t from 41m.
The latest results, comprising broad and shallow gold intercepts over a 300m strike length and a width of 60m to 90m, form part of the Perth-based company’s massive drilling effort at Sandstone that has so far entailed more than 45,000m of drilling in calendar 2020.
Middle Island’s phase two RC and diamond drilling programs have been almost exclusively focused on infilling and extending five new satellite open-pit deposits – McClaren, McIntyre, Ridge, Old Town Well and Plum Pudding – identified by phase one RC drilling in the first half of the year.
Phase one also involved extending the existing Shillington, Two Mile Hill and Wirraminna deposits at Sandstone.
Plum Pudding sits only 850m south of the Middle Island’s mothballed 600,000-tonne-per-annum gold processing plant 12km south of the town of Sandstone between Mount Magnet and Leinster in the East Murchison mineral field. All five new satellite deposits are located on existing mining leases within 2.5km of the plant.
Middle Island Resources Managing Director, Rick Yeates said: “The phase two RC infill drilling … verifies and extends the broader, high-grade gold intercepts recorded in the phase one and historic drilling, collectively representing a more extensive, higher-grade, shallow, oxide deposit, including significant remnant laterite mineralisation from surface.”
According to the company, being a larger, higher-grade, low stripping ratio, oxide open-pit gold deposit, Plum Pudding is likely to make a significant contribution to the planned feasibility study on the recommencement of mining and the refurbishment of the old plant.
Importantly, Middle Island has reached a big milestone in its quest to revive Sandstone, where Troy Resources produced 508,000 ounces of gold from a combined 4.4 million tonnes of open-pit ore averaging 3.6 g/t between 1999 and 2010.
While about 10,000 RC samples from Middle Island’s substantial phase two drilling campaign are still awaiting assaying, the company says the resource definition component of the phase two drilling work is now complete, marking the formal cut-off point for drill data contributions towards the Sandstone recommissioning feasibility study.
Middle Island this month lifted the global Sandstone inferred and indicated resource to 18.1 million tonnes grading 1.13 g/t for 657,600oz of contained gold. The company intends estimating an upgraded mineral resource to an indicated status prior to completing pit optimisations to establish the multiple deposits’ potential to contribute to ore reserves in the feasibility study.
On-site exploration is continuing at Sandstone that includes systematic, reconnaissance RC drill traverses commencing across the exciting 1.1km-long Shillington Gap target, interpreted from high resolution airborne magnetic data to lie beneath shallow transported cover between the Shillington and Ridge gold deposits.
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