Strickland Metals has hauled in a whopping 89.7m hit running at 4 grams per tonne gold from 244m at its wholly-owned Rogozna project in Serbia.
The spectacular intercept includes 24m averaging an impressive 10.5g/t gold from 296m. The big reveal comes from the company’s first hole as the project's new owners, after it wrapped up the strategic acquisition early last month for a tidy $37 million.
Rogozna is located in the globally-significant Tethyan Metallogenic Belt and Strickland has wasted no time in committing to a 60,000m drilling blitz at the site to unlock the project's full potential … and it appears to be a strategy that is paying early dividends.
The first hole in the current drilling campaign targeted a zone of strong gold and copper mineralisation about 200m from the southern end of the Shanac deposit. Management says the hole has vastly improved its understanding of the local geological controls and enabled a more robust geological model to be developed.
Three geologically-distinctive zones of gold and associated base metal mineralisation were encountered through the length of the drillhole, amounting to a stunning total intersection of 293.9m at 1.8g/t gold, 0.2 per cent copper, 0.4 per cent lead, 0.2 per cent zinc and 11g/t silver – equating to 2.5 g/t gold equivalent.
The extensive high-grade skarn gold mineralisation is hosted within the “central domain”, which is located either side of a central dyke and appears to be the primary conduit for mineralising fluids. Armed with the improved geological understanding, Strickland says its ongoing drilling activities will now focus on the more prospective parts of the central domain, which – somewhat surprisingly – remain largely underexplored.
Shanac is one of four key skarn-hosted gold and base metals deposits at the company’s Rogozna project, with Copper Canyon, Medenovac and Gradina rounding out the quartet. Alone, Shanac houses an existing 4.6 million-ounce gold equivalent JORC-compliant resource within a collective 5.44 million-ounce gold equivalent resource for the project.
Strickland Metals managing director Paul L'Herpiniere said: “These results from the first hole drilled by Strickland at Shanac this year are phenomenal! Our strategy for Shanac has been to target the higher-grade zones of the deposit to upgrade the 4.6Moz Au Eq resource. Not only did we discover the highest gold grades ever encountered at the Rogozna Project, but we also encountered extensive copper-gold mineralisation further down the hole, with an ~109m long interval containing 1.3 g/t gold with 0.4 per cent copper, including multiple zones of massive chalcopyrite, with assays up to 11 per cent copper.”
Three rigs are pushing forward with extensional and infill drilling at the company’s main Shanac and Medenovac deposits as part of a 35,000m campaign designed to expand the mineral resource base and refine the delineation of higher-grade zones.
A fourth rig was recently wheeled into Copper Canyon South to test for shallow extensions of deep-seated gold mineralisation where previous drilling tossed up an impressive intercept of 38m at 3.7 grams per tonne gold from a depth of 760m.
After testing Copper Canyon South, the rig is expected to be moved to a conceptual target called the Veleiki prospect, which is exhibiting strong geophysical and geochemical markers typical of copper-gold porphyry systems. All up, 25,000m in discovery drilling is slated across a clutch of high-priority targets.
The stars have truly aligned for this well-funded explorer, releasing a spectacular gold hit as the price for the precious yellow metal continues its meteoric rise – hitting an all-time high of $3789 per ounce last Friday – in the same week that Australia’s mining elite hit the streets of Kalgoorlie for the annual Diggers & Dealers convention. It seems Strickland will have plenty to sing about.
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By Helen Barling
