ASX-listed Si6 Metals has wasted little time in the new year firing up the drill bit and launching into an RC program at its recently acquired Monument gold project approximately 40 kilometres west of Laverton in WA’s North-Eastern Goldfields following an encouraging reconnaissance rock chip sampling program.
Perth-based Si6 intends dedicating 21 RC holes for an aggregate 2,660 metres to the Korong prospect targeting down-plunge extensions to known mineralisation. It will also drill 13 holes totalling 1,715m at the Waihi prospect where, the company says, historic drilling stopped short of the banded iron formation-ultramafic contact that hosts gold mineralisation along the Korong-Perseverance corridor.
The company recently completed the first-pass program comprising 138 rock chip and grab samples and geological mapping, which covered roughly 9km of strike between the project’s Fred’s Well and Perseverance prospects.
The samples returned several high-grade values including 39.3 grams per tonne gold, 25.8 g/t, 21.3 g/t and 13.15 g/t from Fred’s Well, and 21.5 g/t gold, 15.15 g/t, 15.15 g/t and 10 g/t at Perseverance.
Si6 says the sampling work focused on outcropping mineralised banded iron formations, ferruginous and siliceous sediments and waste dumps from historical workings along the mineralised Korong-Perseverance corridor.
The Monument project spans about 300 square kilometres of landholdings straddling the northern extensions of the coveted Laverton Tectonic Zone, which hosts a wealth of gold mining operations and boasts an endowment of more than 30 million ounces of gold.
Current drilling at Monument is expected to take about three to four weeks.
In Botswana, the company has just finished drilling a pivotal diamond hole down to 550m at its Maibele North base and precious metals project.
The deep hole was designed to test for the continuation of nickel sulphide mineralisation previously intersected in 2014. Drilled about 50m to the north-east of the historic hole, it was vectored in on the mineralised horizon at approximately the same depth.
Inspection of the diamond core by Si6’s on-site geologists has indicated promising occurrences of sulphide minerals from approximately 450m to 525m down-hole, according to the company.
Si6 suggests continuation of the nickel sulphide horizon towards the north-east paves the way for it to search for further occurrences of massive sulphides in a target area that is open in all directions.
The company points out the Maibele North sulphide orebody generally pinches and swells dramatically over short distances and says massive sulphide bands may be present proximal to the sulphide horizons observed in the recent hole.
It plans to undertake down-hole electromagnetic surveying in the quest to unmask massive sulphide deposits in nickel sulphide systems and identify off-hole conductors for follow-up drill testing.
Historic drilling carried out by Botswana Metals led to a mineral resource estimate for Maibele North of 2.38 million tonnes ore at an average grade of 0.72 per cent nickel and 0.21 per cent copper.
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