Strickland Metals has discovered a new high-grade gold trend at its Horse Well prospect in Western Australia, with its discovery air-core (AC) drillhole intersecting 31m at 5.6 grams per tonne gold from 72m to bottom-of-hole, including 8m at 17.7g/t gold.
The company says the find was in an area that is not known to have been previously drilled and that the intercept running to the end of the hole means that the full extent of potential gold mineralisation has not yet been fully tested.
Initial field observations and drill logging also indicates that the maiden intercept does not appear to be an isolated occurrence.
The same structure appears to have been intersected in two other holes in the same drilling campaign, at 100m and a further 250m further south of the discovery hole respectively, for a total drilled strike distance of 350m to date. Assays are still to come.
Management has named the new zone the “Marwari” trend.
Strickland Metals chief executive officer Andrew Bray said: “Our current drilling has yielded a spectacular high-grade gold discovery. The hole ended in mineralisation, suggesting the mineralisation may continue further with additional drilling. The discovery sits in an analogous geological setting to the nearby Millrose gold deposit, with intense silica alteration, a near vertical dip to the shear zone, and the presence of a BIF marker horizon. Pleasingly, the shear zone and BIF formation are traceable in geophysical datasets, giving Strickland approximately 1.5km of strike to continue testing.”
Mr Bray said that despite significant historical drilling at the broader Horse Well area, the system remained poorly understood and previous work had been patchy. But drilling had delivered a vastly-improved understanding of the system and controls on the mineralisation.
Strickland is cashed-up for its exploration plans after selling Millrose to Northern Star Resources for some $61 million in July.
The company says it is already modifying its current AC drilling program to close up the drillhole spacing across the Marwari discovery zone for better initial definition and to assist targeting of a planned immediate follow-up campaign of deeper RC drilling within the zone. It is currently undertaking an aggressive 40,000m AC program, with the initial phase of drilling focusing on mapping the Horse Well shear structures.
Previous exploration across the area had focused on drilling areas of outcropping mineralisation identified from historic surface geochemical techniques. That work led to the definition of the current Horse Well inferred mineral resource of 148,000 ounces of gold, but since the late 1990s when the resources were discovered, there has been no further systematic drilling or application of modern exploration methods.
Strickland’s current AC program is the first to be undertaken in nearly three decades to test for extensions to the known mineral resources, under areas of transported cover, or to explore for possible new discoveries away from the existing known mineralisation.
The Horse Well gold project is in the northernmost part of the Yandal/Millrose greenstone belt in WA’s Warburton mineral field and lies about 85km north-east of the town of Wiluna.
The company’s 100 per cent-owned project is well-mineralised and has several additional prospects within the 45km strike of greenstone belt that hosts several multi-million-ounce gold projects such as Jundee, Bronzewing and the Darlot-Centenary gold mine complex.
Strickland appears well capable of undertaking the extensive pattern AC and RC drilling required and is not about to let the grass grow beneath its feet on getting a good handle on its new discovery.
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By Doug Bright
