ASX-listed explorer White Cliff Minerals has kicked off its first pass drilling program at the company’s Cracker Jack prospect, which is part of its Reedy South gold project in the lucrative Meekatharra-Cue goldfields of WA. The work is part of a 74 hole, 4,440 metre shallow RC drilling campaign across both the Cracker Jack and McCaskill Hill prospects.
White Cliff said it has started a seven-hole RC program at Cracker Jack and at its conclusion, it will move on to drill 67 holes at its McCaskill Hill prospect to follow-up encouraging soil sample results
The company expects to have drilling wrapped up by the end of the month, with assay results expected in mid-March.
White Cliff owns 100 per cent of the Reedy South gold project that includes the McCaskill Hill, Cracker Jack and Pegasus prospects that take in some 5.5 kilometres of strike potential in the prospective Meekatharra-Wydgee greenstone belt.
Rock chip samples from Cracker Jack show gold going greater than 1 ounce per tonne and also exhibited strongly elevated responses for the pathfinder elements bismuth, molybdenum and tungsten.
Management said a strike length of approximately 650m requires testing as weak gold anomalism occurs along the eastern margin of both prospects’ banded Iron Formations, or “BIFs”.
Notably the company says the western margin of the BIF remains entirely untested.
The McCaskill Hill RC program follows on from encouraging soil samples taken in March 2021. Mineralisation there is expected by the company to be similar to Cracker Jack and is thought to be controlled by quartz veining within the contact between the BIF, mafics and ultramafics.
The area forms an entirely new northern target zone that covers elevated gold responses and strongly elevated pathfinder elements.
White Cliff is planning to assemble a number of mineable ore bodies in the Reedy South gold project area that can collectively potentially underpin commercial operations.
Reedy South is located around 80km south of Meekatharra and comprises of one mining lease covering the historical underground Pegasus and King Cole mine workings, a granted exploration and prospecting license and four exploration license applications.
The company said further work at Pegasus will be undertaken in a second phase of follow up drilling.
In 2020, White Cliff declared a maiden mineral resource estimate of 779,000 tonnes at 1.7 g/t Au for 42,400 ounces of gold that the company says still remains valid.
According to management the style and controls of mineralisation are similar to Westgold Resources’ Triton-South Emu goldmine that lies immediately north of the project.
White Cliff believes there is scope to substantially grow the resource at Reedy South through drilling at depth and along strike.
White Cliff Minerals Technical Director, Ed Mead said: I am pleased we have remained on schedule. As previously announced, after successfully completing the heritage survey, we were aiming to commence drilling in January 2022.”
“Both Cracker Jack and McCaskill Hill are under-explored prospects. McCaskill Hill is an exciting prospect, straddling the southern end of the Burnakurra Shear Zone, with a large area defined through geochemical sampling.”
The market will no doubt be paying attention to White Cliff’s new drill program to see if it can return results that point to a resource anywhere near as dependable as the mine at Emu South.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
