Alderan Resources (ASX:AL8) has received assay results for the final 16 holes in its recently completed reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its Mizpah oxide gold prospect within the Detroit Project in the US.
The company released the results from drilling at Mizpah, located in the Drum Mountains region of western Utah in the US, on day one (2 November) of the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney last week.
Speaking on the sidelines of IMARC to Mining.com.au, which was an official media partner of the conference, Alderan Managing Director Scott Caithness said the results received so far have been encouraging.
“I think the grades we’ve received were pretty much in line with what we were expecting, but the thicknesses were much thicker than we were expecting. So overall, it has been a better result than what we were expecting.
“I think the grades we’ve received were pretty much in line with what we were expecting, but the thicknesses were much thicker than we were expecting”
Historically, Mizpah was drilled to an average depth of only 28m and the holes were stopped as soon as they went out of oxide material. We’ve drilled through the oxide material, through the transition, through to the primary and we have gold intersection in all the drillholes. So overall, much thicker thicknesses than what has been drilled in the past.”
Caithness told Mining.com.au that to date, “just about every hole has had grades greater than 1g/t” and Alderan has previously intersected 2g/t from 9m and 1.5g/t from 7.6m in much broader intersections of lower grade.
He said that the Detroit Project is one of 4 Alderan projects in Utah, which is an attractive region for mining. It lies within the Detroit Mining District, some 175km southwest of Salt Lake City, and contains numerous historical copper, gold, and manganese mines.
“We know Mizpah mineralisation starts from surface. Our deposits in Utah are similar to those found in Nevada, and to give context 1.5M ounces of gold per annum is produced out of heap leach operations in Nevada. So, it’s not usually a deposit style found in Australia or well known in Australia but the region has significant production.”
The MD said moving into 2023, Alderan will continue to focus on the Mizpah oxide gold prospect with metallurgical work and soil sampling results still to come through.
In September, the company noted a completed reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its Mizpah oxide gold prospect at the Detroit Project in the Drum Mountains region of western Utah, US had intersected ‘high-grade’ near surface oxide gold mineralisation.
On 2 November, the company reported that this recent 22-hole program (1,797m) focused on intersecting ‘high-grade’ near-surface oxide gold mineralisation and demonstrating that the deposit is open down dip to the southwest. Alderan also received assay results for a redrilled hole at Drum.
In addition, Alderan has received research data on heap leach gold deposits in the US compiled independently by CSA Global and sourced from S&P Global Capital IQ and. This data enables Alderan to internally benchmark its Detroit exploration results against producing heap leach gold mines and deposits in the scoping study to development stage.
The MD said that Alderan expects to receive assay results for the infill soil samples at Detroit in coming weeks. The C-horizon soils were collected at 40m intervals along 100m spaced infill lines and to fill in gaps in the original 200m and 400m spaced lines where anomalies have been identified. This includes 3km strike of host stratigraphy between Drum and the high order Basin Main anomaly which is 800m north of Mizpah and has gold in soil grades up to 0.32g/t Au.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Alderan Resources Ltd
