Surefire Resources NL has the drill bit spinning again at its promising Yidby gold project in the Murchison district of WA’s Mid West, targeting extensions to gold mineralised intercepts of discovery holes at the project’s three main prospects.
The program will also test structural targets generated from magnetic and gravity data and interpretations Surefire commissioned from CSA Global.
In total, it will comprise 24 RC holes to variable depths to 200m for a total of 2800m.
Surefire Resources Managing Director, Paul Burton said: “This is a much- anticipated drilling program to build on the already exciting gold results following the discovery of mineralisation by Surefire.”
The company says Yidby’s gold discoveries feature substantial down-hole mineralisation widths, high-grade gold intersections and enjoy excellent metallurgy characteristics.
The project hosts three prospects – the original Yidby deposit and two new gold zones, the Marshall and Fender prospects, discovered in an RC drill program that finished in the middle of last year.
Surefire has also found a large untested gold anomaly measuring 1000m by 250m and two smaller anomalies that it is calling the Money Anomaly. The company says the targets have not been drilled by previous explorers and they provide potential for new gold discoveries to be made directly along strike from its Yidby gold deposit.
However, Money Anomaly is on the exploration backburner for a while until Surefire ascertains how far the mineralisation at its three prospects extends. Early drilling has certainly whetted the explorer’s appetite.
The discovery hole at Marshall, for example, returned 60m at 1.04 grams per tonne gold from 32m, including 4m at 10.4 g/t from 72m.
Towards the end of 2022, Surefire also conducted a five-hole diamond drill program designed to provide information on controls of mineralisation completed across the project.
The current program is expected to be completed within a few weeks and will principally target extensions to the existing gold mineralised intercepts and test structural targets generated from Surefire’s magnetic and gravity data and subsequent structural interpretation by CSA Global.
Yidby’s gold mineralisation is associated with porphyries and mafic host rocks – the same as in other regional discoveries.
Sitting within the southern portion of the Yalgoo-Singleton Greenstone Belt, about 400km north of Perth, Yidby covers 114 square kilometres and is surrounded by some major projects. To the north sits the Minjar and Rothsay gold projects, going 1.1 million ounces and 485,000 ounces respectively, to its north-east is the 1 million ounce Kirkalock project and the historic gold rush settlement Paynes Find lies to its east.
Surefire has previously flagged its aim of establishing a maiden JORC resource by the end of 2023. However, the gold mineralisation now covers more than 3km in strike length and remains open in all directions so the company first needs to find where the mineralisation ends. Infill drilling is also on the horizon.
The wait might be well worth it if Yidby’s gold prospects can hold their own when measured against Surefire’s two other premium WA projects – its Victory Bore-Unaly Hill battery mineral project with 321 million tonnes at 0.4 per cent vanadium oxide and the Perenjori high-purity magnetite project with its 191.7Mt at 37 per cent iron.
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By Matt Birney
