Exploration company Bellevue Gold Limited (ASX: BGL) has reported high-grade gold intersects 7.4km north of its Bellevue Gold Project in WA.
The company announced that the first hole in the maiden regional drilling program on the 20km-long Bellevue Trend hit 17m @ 4.2 g/t from 19m, including 3m @ 9.7 g/t from 19m and 3m @ 11.6 g/t from 33m at the Government Well prospect.
It may be noted that the Government Well prospect has been defined over 1.2km by field mapping. BGL reported that the RC drilling has now been completed over 500m of strike, with assays pending on three holes.
The company said that visible gold mineralisation was panned over a 1m interval in one of these holes associated with pyrite mineralisation in quartz veining. The reported intersection is 180m along strike of an historical RC result of 2m @ 18.7 g/t gold from 32m.
BGL announced that further regional exploration of 10,000m is planned and budgeted for the calendar year.
Bellevue gold project
The Bellevue Gold Project is 400km north west of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and sits within a high-grade gold and nickel district on the prolific Wiluna-Norseman gold belt.
The Bellevue Lode Systems form a continuous 4 km mineralised system of high-grade quartz lodes in a shear corridor within the Mount Goode Basalt. The known high-grade lodes within the lode system include Bellevue Lode, Deacon Lode, Tribune Lode, Viago Lode, and the Southern Belle Lode.
Bellevue has a Mineral Resource estimate of 6.1Mt @ 11.3 g/t gold for 2.2M ounces of gold.
Government Well prospect
The Government Well Prospect is part of the Kathleen Valley project located on M36/328 and M36/176 and is 100% owned by Bellevue Gold.
The target was previously rock chipped by Bellevue Gold with results up to 32 g/t gold from outcropping veins and a Sub Audio Magnetic (SAM) survey completed at the prospect in 2019.
The Prospect is located approximately 7.4 km to the North of the Bellevue Mine located in a position where the mine trend bends slightly to the NW along the granite contact.
Mineralisation at the prospect is associated with pyrite and quartz veins which outcrop from surface in some locations and others are covered in shallow alluvial cover. Rock chipping and field mapping have defined multiple parallel trends over 1.2km in Government Well prospect.
RC drilling at Government Well
The company had recently commenced RC drilling at the Government Well prospect located within the 20 kilometres of underexplored ground on the Bellevue Trend.
The company said that in the first pass program, drilling focused on the central 500m where shallow previous drilling (typical hole depth ~25m) defined a number of significant drill results.
BGL reported that a four-hole (DRRC214, DRRC215, DRRC216, and DRRC217) reverse circulation drill program has been completed, with assays from the final three holes pending.
High-grade gold intersections
The company reported high-grade intersections from first regional hole.
BGL said that the drill hole DRRC214 intersected two zones of significant quartz veining returning two high grade gold intervals of 3m @ 9.7 g/t gold from 19m and 3m @ 11.6 g/t gold from 33m within an overall interval of 17m @ 4.2 g/t gold.
The company reported that DRRC217 was collared 180 m to the south of DRRC214 and about 20m down dip of the historical drill result of 2m @ 18.7 g/t gold and results are still pending for this drillhole. BGL reported that the hole DRRC217 intersected pyrite quartz veining with visible gold observed in chips over 1m from 54m.
Updates and next steps
The company reported that it has received the third EIS co-funding grant from the West Australian Government to drill the first deeper drill program below 600 m beneath surface to target repeat lodes beneath the Bellevue and Deacon Lodes.
BGL said that in addition to the resource drilling to support the maiden indicated resource at the Bellevue Mine Project area in support of project development, attention will now turn to continued exploration at a number of high priority targets at the project within the 20km corridor and also as extensional drilling at the Deacon and Bellevue Peripheral Lodes to continue to grow the global resource inventory.
The company announced that a follow-up diamond drilling has been planned at the Government Well prospect. BGL said that this is being done to determine whether the shallow pyrite is reflective of retrograde pyrhotite mineralisation suitable for targeting with DHEM as is the case at Bellevue or whether it reflects a new mineralisation style at the project.
BGL announced that in parallel with the exploration drilling, it is finalising its upcoming maiden Indicated Resource at Bellevue, where the Inferred Resource stands at 2.2Moz at 11.3 g/t, and has initiated economic studies on the project.
Management statements
Bellevue Managing Director Steve Parsons said: “This result supports our view that there is huge scope to grow the inventory at Bellevue. The Bellevue Gold Mine sits within a 20km-long mineralised corridor which has been subjected to very limited exploration.
The drilling at Government Well represents our first foray away from the mine area and given the strength of this result, we will conduct follow-up drilling at the first opportunity.”