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Andrew Todd
Great Southern Mining has fired up the drill rig for a maiden reverse circulation (RC) drilling tilt at its emerging Amy Clarke discovery in Western Australiaā€™s Duketon gold belt, kicking off an 18-hole, 2300-metre program designed to test for depth extensions to a substantial 4.7-kilometre-long gold trend, recently uncovered by shallow aircore drilling.
Previous aircore work at Amy Clarke has rarely penetrated below 50m from surface, however, it has already delivered a string of impressive early stage hits. One hit returned a succulent 8m intersection grading 6.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 33m, with a richer 4m section running a hefty 12.5g/t gold Other notable shallow results include 2m bonanza grade hit at 23.9 g/t gold from just 10m and a thicker 17m at 1.4 g/t gold from 20m.
The company says its new RC program is designed to step out along strike and at depth beneath these higher-grade zones to define the orientation of the mineralisation and better understand its geological controls.
The Amy Clarke prospect sits just 3.5km south of Regis Resourcesā€™ Erlistoun gold mine and about 12km from its Garden Well processing facility where well over a million ounces of high-grade gold has been produced.
With gold once again surging in price – now hovering at a tasty US$4400 an ounce (A$6250 an ounce) – having a potential satellite feed discovery within trucking distance of an operating mill is a significant strategic advantage that can shorten the path from discovery to development for Great Southern.
Meanwhile, the company and its global gold heavyweight partner Gold Fields are simultaneously drilling a high-priority porphyry copper-gold target at Mt Dillon in north Queensland. Major miner Gold Fields is bankrolling the program, with 1300m diamond drilling plunging into the depths within Great Southernā€™s broader Edinburgh Park tenure.
Under the agreed farm-in partnership, Gold Fields can spend up to $15 million on exploration to earn a 75 per cent interest in the expansive project, with the current program testing the most compelling of its big scale targets.
The highly anticipated program is testing an induced polarisation (IP) chargeability anomaly lurking beneath a preserved lithocap – a zone of resistant, silica-rich alteration that can form a protective cap above the monster scale porphyry copper-gold systems.
Back in WA, Great Southern says a pipeline of results are expected in the coming weeks.
The company says assay results are imminent from a recently completed 3089m RC program at its Mon Ami gold project, located 12km south of Laverton and additional assays are pending for another 4726m of drilling at its Golden Boulder discovery where drilling has so far tested about 1.1km of a potential 3.5km of mineralised strike.
A staggering 68 holes are already planned for the follow up at Golden Boulder once the Amy Clarke program is complete with Great Southern stepping up to be amongst the most active drillers of the juniors on the gold hungry ASX.
With assays stacking up across three projects and rigs turning on both sides of the country, the Perth-based explorer looks to be sitting on a stack of gold discovery opportunities in a very active next few months for this promising ASX hopeful.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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