Venus Metals and Rox Resources have kicked off an RC drilling program at their Penny West Deep South and Sovereign prospects at the JV partners’ Youanmi gold project in WA as they continue their quest to revive the historic gold mining region. The partners have already enjoyed significant success at the project with long, ounce plus intersections already rolling off the drillbit at Youanmi.
Encouraging results from recent exploration at the project suggest the old Youanmi gold mining area may be harbouring more than just sulphide mineralisation which it has been historically known for.
According to the joint venture partners, new styles of mineralisation identified have helped reshape perspectives on Youanmi to a prospective area with non-refractory or non-sulphide mineralisation outside of the historic mine area.
Perth-based Venus said the latest RC campaign will test the depth and along-strike extensions of a new zone of gold mineralisation discovered at Sovereign where recent aircore drilling returned solid intercepts of 4m grading 7.02 grams per tonne gold from 24m and 5m at 2.41g/t gold from 60m.
The aircore drill hits were followed up last year with RC drilling beneath those holes that returned best intersections of 3m at 6.61g/t gold from 78m and 3m at 1.98g/t gold from 61m.
At Penny West Deep South, the joint venture partners will focus their RC drilling efforts on electromagnetic anomalies generated by geophysical survey work south of the historical Penny West gold mine.
The latest round of drilling will also test the bedrock mineralisation beneath anomalous gold reported from historical RAB drilling that has not been followed up.
Venus and Rox are also planning to kick off further aircore drilling soon, targeting the Penny West Deep South and the Pincher North prospects. According to Venus, a high-grade assay from an old RAB drill hole at Pincher North does not appear to have seen any historical follow-up drilling.
The joint venture partners this month confirmed preliminary metallurgical testwork had resulted in high gold recoveries from oxide material at the Grace, Plant Zone and Main Lode prospects of 97%, 94% and 94% respectively, representing a shot in the arm for their hopes of resuscitating the historic Youanmi gold mine.
The first-pass metallurgical testwork results indicates that gold mineralisation encountered in recent drilling at the Youanmi gold project in general, “and especially at Grace”, may be amenable to conventional cyanide extraction methods, something that has put a spring in the step of the JV partners.
The main orebody historically mined at Youanmi was largely refractory or sulphide bearing at depth, however, according to Venus and Rox, the latest metallurgical testwork demonstrates different primary mineralisation styles within the Youanmi project area such as the granite-hosted gold at Grace that appear to be non-refractory, delivering excellent recoveries using conventional gold processing circuits.
Metallurgical testwork is continuing as is RC drilling of the Grace prospect.
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