Arika Resources (ASX:ARI) has intersected a new gold lode at its Kookynie Gold Project in Western Australia, and will move its drill rig to Yundamindra next month.
Hole 26AKRC007 returned 5m @ 12.34 grams per tonne gold (Au) from 162m, including 1m @ 49.92g/t Au. Hole 26AKRC004 returned 9m @ 1.59g/t Au from 188m, including 3m @ 4.48g/t Au.
The two reverse circulation (RC) holes, drilled about 60m apart, intersected a hanging wall lode 10–20m above the historic Cosmopolitan Main Reef.
The zone sits roughly 200m down-plunge of the main historic mining at the Cosmopolitan Gold Mine, which produced about 360,000 ounces at 15g/t between 1897 and 1922.
The gold-bearing shear contains almost no quartz, which may explain why the historic miners, who followed quartz leaders underground, missed it.
Managing Director Justin Barton says the company appears to have identified a “previously unrecognised high-grade gold lode” above the historically mined Main Reef, in an area where no stoping took place.
“This is an important geological insight — and a feature that we’ve also identified in our work at Yundamindra — that could fundamentally change the way we explore the broader Cosmopolitan system,” Barton adds.
First-pass drilling also returned ‘high-grade’ results from other targets in the Cosmopolitan-Altona corridor:
- 1m @ 11.77g/t Au from 63m at Irishman
- 4m @ 6.34g/t Au from 16m at Welshman
- 4m @ 8.24g/t Au from 90m at Altona South
The company will re-split and resubmit anomalous 4m composite samples on a 1m basis.
Arika recommenced drilling at its 100%-owned Kookynie Project, about 65km south of Leonora, in July. About 100 RC holes totalling 12,000m are complete, with roughly 8,000 samples at the laboratory.
The rig will complete pre-collars at Yundamindra next month ahead of diamond drilling at Pennyweight Point, with a diamond rig due on site towards the end of November.
Extensional drilling continues at Altona, and the company plans to test new targets at Champion and Leipold.
Arika Resources holds no mineral resource estimate at Kookynie and targets a maiden resource in the near term.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Arika Resources
