Aureka (ASX:AKA) has commenced a six-week infill drilling campaign at Comstock, targeting continuity beneath Walkers pit and confirming the historical drill hole data.
The drilling program aims to upgrade the JORC resource to a higher classification in order to reinforce production targets and financial forecasts.
Studies have been underway since December 2025, testing the economics to support potential first production, with this infill program a part of that work.
This drilling campaign will last around six weeks for approximately 1,000m across six short holes at an average depth of less than 100m.
Aureka’s goals include validating the historical data and increasing the drill data density to support higher confidence in the 100% inferred JORC resource.
Managing Director James Gurry says that the company looks forward to the results of the various programs it has underway.
“It is pleasing to see an exciting infill program now underway at Comstock where we reported multiple instances of visible and high-grade gold in 2025, particularly hole number two with 1m @ 65.37 grams per tonne gold from 116m that included 0.3m @ 109g/t and 0.4m @ 65.4g/t, plus more recently encouraging silver assays of up to 650g/t.”
Exploration Manager Jozef Story also notes that the historical data has included “some remarkable consistently high-grade gold assays”.
“Infill and reaffirmation drilling is currently in progress, targeting near pit surface mineralisation immediately beneath the Walkers sub-pit floor.”
If successful, Story says this presents a “unique opportunity” for Aureka.
“[We can] potentially reinvigorate the Comstock project via small scale production along the Walkers structure, which is characterised by auriferous sheared quartz reefs and zones of stockwork quartz veining that have historically delivered mineable ore tonnes and multiple significant high-grade drilling intercepts.”
The drill program follows a successful program from 2025, where Aureka released a maiden JORC mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 1.45 million tonnes at 1.21g/t gold for 56,500 ounces of gold.
Aureka has also announced an exploration target around the inferred resource, ranging between 3-3.5 million tonnes at grades of 1.2g/t and 1g/t.
This results in an exploration target range of 112,000-116,000 ounces of gold, with additional economic amounts of silver at 1.9-2.02g/t silver for a total of 195,000-214,000 ounces of silver.
Aureka is an Australian explorer focused on advancing gold projects in Victoria.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Aureka
