Surefire Resources is tallying up the hits from its latest drilling probe at its Yidby project in Western Australia’s Murchison goldfields.
Early composite assay results have returned 4m averaging 5.5 grams per tonne gold from 118m, housing a 1m intercept tipping the scales at an impressive 20.81g/t. Other notable hits include 12m coming in at nearly 1g/t from 96m and 44m running at 0.34g/t from 88m.
The preliminary results have been returned from 4m composite samples from the company’s recently-completed 25-hole reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program, which targeted extensions to high-grade intercepts from a trio of priority prospects at Fender, Marshall and Yidby.
As a technique deployed widely across the gold exploration sector, samples are taken from each 1m run and composited over a 4m interval as an effective way to reduce assaying costs. When the results are returned, 1m samples are selected over significant gold anomalous intercepts for reassaying to help narrow in on the mineralised zone.
Yidby covers 114 square kilometres in the southern portion of the Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt, about 350km north of Perth. It is home to Capricorn Metals’ developing 2.7-million-ounce Mt Gibson gold project and Warriedar Resources’ 945,000-ounce Golden Dragon deposit.
Surefire picked up the promising patch in 2020 and promptly set to work, conducting soil geochemistry and geophyisical programs to scour for mineralised gold systems beneath a blanket of transported cover.
The company’s maiden drilling program in late 2020 stumped up a string of impressive hits, including 56m grading 1.97g/t from 44m together with 40m averaging 3.01g/t from 24m, which held a 4m intercept running at 26.57g/t. It suggested the company had latched onto a sizeable gold-mineralised system.
With each additional spin of the drillbit, Surefire is confidently building its geological model by identifying key structures and trends to vector further towards drilling.
The company says two prominent mineralised shears – Fender and Yidby – have been identified as the primary hosts to gold mineralisation, with the latter housing spectacular lodes of up to 82.5g/t gold.
Regionally, the gold mineralisation trend has been etched out over a 3km strike length, extending from the Fender prospect in the north down to the untested southern “Money” gold-in-soil anomaly.
While waiting for the final 1m assays to return, the company has engaged the services of Southern Geoscience to undertake a detailed review of all available geophysical data to assist with finessing its geological and structural model as it plans where to point the drill rig next.
Surefire Resources’ managing director Paul Burton says: “The results from the 4m composites are encouraging and continue to show mineralisation extending beyond our previous intersects. The 1m are now being assayed for results with these expected in the coming weeks. The project has clear mineralising trends now evident which provide targets for future drilling as the project evolves.”
Amid gyrating global share markets, the price of gold has retained its lustrous glimmer, hovering around the US$2000 (AU$3700) per ounce mark, with banking powerhouse Goldman Sachs forecasting prices to remain strong for the remainder of the year.
With a bounty of significant hits already under its belt and an intriguing underexplored trend of gold mineralisation etched out, Surefire is spoilt for choice as it ponders which part of the project to probe next.
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By Helen Barling
