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Murray Ward
Golden Dragon Mining has fired up the drill rigs at its Cue Gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison region, launching a major aircore drilling campaign to test two sizeable anomalies in a corridor stretching more than three kilometres.
The 6000m to 9000m program will probe gold-in-soil targets at the Coodardy/Behring Bore area, where recent surface work has suggested the company’s known gold footprint could be considerably larger than previously thought.
The results have effectively linked Golden Dragon’s Curtis Find, Behring Bore, Coodardy and Piston prospects, pointing to the potential for a single, big mineralised system rather than a series of isolated targets.
An extensive auger campaign revealed a broad northeast-trending geochemical trend, with gold strongly associated with arsenic and antimony, two key pathfinder elements that can help explorers track concealed gold mineralisation.
‘Our recent auger program has identified a significant, coherent northeast-trending gold anomaly extending over more than three kilometres.’
Golden Dragon Mining managing director Simon Buswell-Smith
The mineral signature, including a peak gold-in-soil value of 720 parts per billion, has defined the primary exploration target for the new campaign. The drilling will systematically test the regional-scale surface anomalies and determine whether they are associated with underlying bedrock mineralisation, helping prioritise targets for follow-up reverse circulation (RC) drilling.
Golden Dragon Mining managing director Simon Buswell-Smith said: “The commencement of this extensive AC drilling program marks an important step forward for the Coodardy gold system. We are particularly encouraged by the potential to better understand the relationship between these known prospects and determine whether they form part of a broader mineralised corridor.”
Additionally, the company is awaiting assay results from 2833m of RC drilling recently completed at its priority Coodardy and Behring Bore prospects.
That program targeted extensions to high-grade mineralisation at Coodardy, where previous drilling delivered some cracking results, including a headline hit of 12m assaying 6.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 44m, featuring a richer core of 4m at an impressive 17.6g/t gold.
Other notable intercepts from earlier campaigns assayed 8m grading 10.82g/t gold from a shallow 25m, including a four-metre slice grading a whopping 21.37g/t gold. Re-assaying of previous 4-metre composite samples also returned spectacular results, with one 11-metre interval at 6.42g/t gold from 45m containing a one-metre section going an eye-watering 59.2g/t gold.
The campaign comes as exploration activity remains strong across the Murchison province, where explorers are successfully combining modern geophysics, geochemistry and drilling to chase major gold discoveries along the region’s extensive mineralised structures.
Golden Dragon has also been building its acreage in the prolific gold district, a strategy that recently attracted a significant vote of confidence from Shanghai-listed heavyweight Chengtun Mining Group. The major player tipped in $2.2 million for a cornerstone 19.89 per cent stake in the junior explorer at a premium to its share price at the time.
Once all of its new applications are granted, the company will control a dominant landholding of roughly 619 square kilometres in a region that hosts Westgold’s 2.3-million-ounce Big Bell gold mine. The expanded project area contains over 50km of mineralised shear zones.
While immediate focus remains on the Cue project in the Murchison, Golden Dragon is also advancing its Stella Range project near Laverton, where recent auger drilling has mapped out a substantial 2.2-kilometre-long gold-in-soil anomaly, yet to see a drill bit.
With an aircore rig now turning to test a compelling three-kilometre-long target and a batch of RC assays from deeper drilling already at the lab, Golden Dragon appears to have set itself up for a period of strong newsflow. If the aircore program can confirm surface anomalism is leaching from a continuous bedrock source, the company may potentially have a significant gold system on its hands in one of WA’s most revered gold-producing postcodes.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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