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Andrew Todd
PLC Resources has wrapped up its latest round of drilling at its Rochefort gold prospect in Western Australia’s Murchison region, intersecting the exact geological sweet spot it has been hunting for to prove up a potential virgin gold discovery.
The company has completed an eight-hole, 1896-metre reverse circulation (RC) campaign designed to step out from its maiden program earlier this year, with early geological logging confirming the drill bit passed through sheared zones of sulphides within the targeted fractionated dolerite gold target.
The company says early results are a textbook match for its exploration model, which is based on a “sulphidation” process known to be a key ingredient in major Yilgarn gold deposits, including those hosted by the famed Golden Mile Dolerite – host of the famed Kalgoorlie Super Pit.
All samples are now at the laboratory, with a four to six-week wait for gold assays.
‘Our follow-up drilling at Rochefort, and the logging shows the geology we set out to find.’
PLC Resources executive director Simon Phillips
The latest program was designed to test for extensions of a fractionated dolerite unit that delivered low-level yet consistent gold in the project’s maiden five-hole campaign in May. That initial program picked up geochemical clues suggesting the drilling may have clipped the edge of a larger mineralised system, a theory which is soon to be truth-tested by the lab.
PLC’s working theory is that mineralising fluids interacted with the iron-rich dolerite, altering primary sulphides such as pyrrhotite into pyrite and potentially dropping gold out of the solution in the process. The latest visual confirmation of sheared zones, sulphides and magnetite-bearing intervals appears to give the company’s exploration model a significant shot in the arm.
PLC Resources executive director Simon Phillips said: “We’ve now completed our follow-up drilling at Rochefort, and the logging shows the geology we set out to find: sheared, sulphide-bearing zones within the fractionated dolerite. That’s encouraging, but the assay results are required to determine whether the system is mineralised with gold. We expect those results within the next four to six weeks.”
While the market awaits the lab results from Rochefort, a potentially bigger story is unfolding on the company’s nearby ground.
Independent of the Rochefort target, PLC’s recent airborne magnetic survey may have changed the game for the company at a regional level. The high-resolution data revealed a large-scale fold structure along the eastern margin of the Abbotts Greenstone Belt.
Management says the structure is a crustal-level feature that extends for more than 14km of strike and, importantly, continues south into ground held by the $750 million market-capped New Murchison Gold. New Murchison has been moving and shaking in WA’s burgeoning gold sector of late, successfully trucking high-grade discoveries from the region to a toll-treatment facility and generating more than $50 million in cash flow in the last quarter alone.
PLC is now moving to ground-truth these newly identified structural corridors and cash in, with geological reconnaissance planned for next month ahead of a maiden regional aircore drilling campaign on its untested targets.
With Rochefort assays now pending and a second discovery front taking shape, PLC is building some serious momentum across its Murchison ground. A clear path to drill a major structure apparently shared with a highly profitable neighbour gives the company two shots at uncovering a new gold system.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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