Terrain Minerals has commenced a major 6800-metre RC drilling assault across its high priority Lightning and Wildflower gold and silver targets in the Murchison gold province of Western Australia.
The company says it will drill deeper and along strike of existing stand-out intercepts, potentially leading to a maiden gold resource at Lighting, slated for mid-next year.
Terrain has also identified multiple gold targets extending over 800 metres at its Wildflower project associated with coincident structures and which were highlighted by recent induced polarisation (IP) geophysics.
Outstanding gold intercepts at Lightning have already delivered hits up to 13 metres grading 8.13 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 122 metres and 22 metres at 2.71g/t from 105 metres. Silver grades are also anomalous and correlate strongly with gold, throwing off hits such as 21m grading 15.79g/t silver and 17m running at 17.88g/t silver, highlighting Lightning as an emerging two metal discovery.
Not to be outdone, an IP survey at Wildflower revealed an 800-metre-long chain of strong IP chargeability anomalies, representing potential gold bearing zones.
Three standout chargeability targets have been highlighted and will be targeted for a though inspection with no less than thirteen holes next year. Supporting these anomalies are similar and coincident large-scale structures that share lookalike characteristics to the nearby Lightning discovery. Both prospects are in the same structural corridors around the main Mt Mulgine granite intrusive.
The IP survey followed several years of systematic exploration over the Wildflower area, including extensive mapping over several historic and elevated gold in soil anomalies and a highly successful air-core program, which identified encouraging zones of mineralisation.
The RC drilling that followed identified zones of sulphides, highlighting IP as a potentially highly effective exploration technique. Terrain has successfully used the surveys at Lightning and its Monza target just north of Wildflower.
Terrain Minerals executive director Justin Virgin said: "Importantly, we're not just drilling out one potential deposit. We're testing multiple targets that could deliver additional discoveries within the Lightning complex, let alone over the Wildflower area. We believe we're just scratching the surface of what could be a district-scale gold system."
The Lightning prospect sits in the Yalgoo mineral field within the prolific Murchison gold district and is bracketed by producing operations to the north and south of Terrain’s tenure. It lies 10 km west of Vault Minerals’ Rothsay gold mine, with 29Metals’ Golden Grove mine and Capricorn Metals’ Mt Gibson operation also in close proximity.
The Wildflower prospect is located 5km south of Lightning and was highlighted by a 1000m by 500m gold-in-soil anomaly. The company says the target exhibits strong potential for analogous mineralisation and coincides with the same shear zone that hosts the Rothsay deposit.
The company believes Wildflower could open a second front of mineralisation, boosting the district-scale potential that is beginning to emerge across the large Smokebush project area.
With drilling now officially underway, all eyes turn to the first batches of assays due in mid-February. If Terrain can back up its earlier hits with more runs on the board - and perhaps even snare a second discovery at Wildflower - the company could find itself charging into 2026 with a rapidly maturing gold-silver story and a potential resource on the horizon.
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