Strickland Metals’ aggressive gold hunt in Western Australia is steaming ahead at full pace, with its recent air-core (AC) drilling program highlighting consistent hits in a newly-defined 750m zone at its Yandal project near Wiluna.
The company says bottom-of-hole intercepts indicate a new structure west of its highly-promising Dusk til Dawn prospect that contains an inferred resource of 109,000 gold ounces.
Strickland’s fully-owned Yandal project is about 85km north-east of Wiluna and two of its highly-regarded areas within the project are Dusk til Dawn and Horse Well. They are located about 20km apart, with the newly-defined structure lying close to the Dusk til Dawn area.
The company says its latest intercepts highlight the new structure along a target corridor. The zone remains open down-dip and down-plunge, providing the potential for thicker intercepts where shear zones meet and form a bigger gold mass.
Strickland says the AC drilling was unable to penetrate the fresh rock, however, anomalous gold was recorded in the last metre of all but one of the holes drilled. Management says a similar alteration style of mineralisation was encountered at the new western shear zone, in line with previous reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Dusk til Dawn.
The company is now planning to test below the holes that ended in mineralisation, with the planned additional drilling expected to assist with its understanding of the thickness and grade distribution throughout the new structure.
It says the target area has the potential for multiple stacked and parallel mineralised lodes and follow-up RC drilling will form part of a more substantial program across the project area, which is screaming to be drilled due to the high number of prospective areas within the overall project.
Strickland Metals chief executive officer Andrew Bray said: “These results are a good reminder of the tremendous potential our Yandal gold project offers. While most of the drilling last year occurred at Horse Well (where significant new mineralisation was discovered and requires follow up drilling), the mineralisation referred to in this announcement is over 20km away.”
The company says the greenstone belt remains virtually unexplored for the entire ground that lies between its prospect areas, with only sporadic historical programs having occurred. Strickland also noted the Dusk til Dawn resource has the potential to be expanded as it remains open both down-dip and down-plunge.
Bray also said RC drilling had restarted at Rabbit Well after it had recently been drenched by significant rain throughout the project area. The drilling will focus on mapping the overall geological, alteration and pathfinder geochemical model in a bid to home in on the primary source of the previously-intersected oxide base metal mineralisation.
Further assays are expected to be received and released within the next fortnight.
Rabbit Well is a highly-prospective base metals target in the Earaheedy basin that features several promising anomalies, such as a strong surface copper-zinc-lead-silver geochemical anomaly, in addition to geophysical gravity and induced-polarisation (IP) anomalies.
It is close to the Iroquois prospect that previously recorded eye-watering hits of 4.3m at 27 per cent zinc and 19.9 grams per tonne silver from 226.7m, within a broad intersection of 58m going 4.3 per cent zinc and 3.7g/t silver from 173m.
With more targets on offer than a shooting gallery, expect plenty of news flow from Strickland as the upcoming drill programs move into full swing.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Craig Nolan
