ASX-listed junior WA gold explorer Torian Resources says it has encountered gold mineralisation at high priority prospects at its flagship Mt Stirling project about 40 kilometres north-west of Leonora following a round of auger vacuum drilling.
Almost four months ago the company released an interim mineral resource statement for Mt Stirling’s namesake deposit that tipped the scales at an inferred and indicated 2.05 million tonnes grading an average 1.54 grams per tonne for 101,722 ounces of contained gold.
Perth-based Torian’s nearby Stirling Well deposit chimes in with a further inferred resource of 253,500 tonnes going at an average grade of 2.01 g/t for 16,384 ounces of contained gold.
Arsenic anomalies appear to correlate with gold occurrences in the region, according to the company.
It says gold mineralisation has been uncovered at the Mt Stirling project’s Hydra prospect with auger vacuum arsenic-rich samples returning anomalous gold values along multiple interpreted strike target zones.
Peak readings from the vertical auger vacuum drilling that came in at 1.08 g/t gold from 2 metres depth and 0.44 g/t from 20m coincide with previously detected arsenic portable XRF surface soil anomalies, Torian says.
The company says auger vacuum drilling generates clean uncontaminated samples of overburden and oxide material above basement hard rock that can be screened by a portable XRF analyser for vectoring minerals and elements and contoured to map out their dispersion.
Torian intends testing five discrete arsenic target zones going more than 500 parts per million arsenic at Hydra during a forthcoming reverse circulation drilling program.
Arsenic anomalies recently led to the discovery of its Viserion shear lode along strike from the Mt Stirling deposit and gold sniffs at Hydra indicate that arsenic vectoring continues to be a successful pathfinder to gold mineralisation, Torian says.
Hydra lies about 500m north-west of the Viserion shear lode prospect and the $26 million market-capped company suggests the two may be linked.
At the Tyrannus prospect to the east, Torian says the target strike length has been significantly extended to about 1km.
Torian Resources Executive Director Peretz Schapiro said: “We are committed to continuing our systematic exploration of the Mt Stirling gold project. In addition to working on proving up further ounces at the open Mt Stirling resource, we are continuing to uncover further high-priority targets of which we are excited to further explore.”
“As is clear from today’s announcement we are blessed that the Mt Stirling gold project is endowed with so many high priority and prospective targets. We have already recommenced RC drilling at the project and look forward to keeping the market informed of our progress.”
The company has also dipped its toes into the cryptocurrency space via an equity swap arrangement with blockchain outfit BullionFX, which recently listed its “BULL” gold-backed token on cryptocurrency exchange Digifinex.
Earlier this year Torian invested US$1 million in BullionFX equity and in turn BullionFX acquired 27.7 million shares in Torian.
The two parties also struck an advisory services agreement in relation to the development of gold blockchain products that saw Torian emerge with a 5 per cent shareholding in BullionFX at the time of the deal.
BullionFX listed the BULL token earlier this month and Torian expects to receive about 15 million BULLs as part of BullionFX’s distribution to shareholders.
Torian says its BULLs are currently valued at about US$12.75 million based on a BULL price of 85 cents per token.
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