Gold Mountain Limited (ASX: GMN) announced that the exploration activities at the company’s flagship Wabag Project in PNG has identified mineralised intrusives and skarns at Mt Wipi, highlighting the exploration potential for a large mineralised system. Exploration activities had resumed at Mt Wipi in mid-January.
The company also reported an update on the drilling at Monoyal. GMN said that the first hole in GMN’s phase two drilling programme at Monoyal was completed in mid-December 2020.
Wabag Project
Wabag Project is located in the highly prospective Papuan Mobile Belt (PMB) of Papua New Guinea and contains ten Exploration Licences (ELs) which cover an area of approximately 2,775 km2.
GMN had identified three distinct copper-gold porphyry targets at the Wabag Project – Mt Wipi, Sak Creek, and Monoyal. As a result of this, the company had developed a multi-target exploration programme to advance these projects.
Exploration work at Wabag
The company had resumed the exploration work at Mt Wipi and Monoyal after the Christmas break with further work on Sak Creek scheduled to begin in the near future.
The company’s exploration strategy provides the opportunity for a copper-gold discovery at three prospects as well as exploration upside to identify other areas of significant mineralisation within the tenement package.
Mineralised intrusives and skarns at Mt Wipi
GMN announced that the initial exploration work had identified mineralised intrusives and skarns at Mt Wipi which highlight the exploration potential for a large mineralised system.
Reconnaissance rock chip sampling
The company announced that the reconnaissance rock chip sampling within a 3km long x 1km wide area returned results of up to 9.64% copper, 1.96 g/t gold, and 100 g/t silver.
Channel samples
GMN said that the results from channel samples taken along the banks of Waa Creek within EL2632 indicated that there are multiple, 3 to 7m wide “veins and or structures” which contain highly anomalous copper, gold, and silver mineralisation. The best intercept reported included 5m @ 2.57% copper, 0.53 g/t gold and 33.56 g/t silver.
Stream sediment and rock chip sampling
Gold Mountain reported that the stream sediment and rock chip sampling at Mt Wipi highlighted a significant area of copper, gold, and silver anomalism associated with a NW structure within a NE trending structural corridor and magnetic low feature which geological mapping shows to be associated with an intrusive.
Petrology results
The company said that the petrology results from samples from Mt Wipi show strong pervasive potassic alteration and copper mineralisation of an intrusive and strong skarn alteration and associated copper – gold – silver mineralisation along structurally modified intrusive contacts.
Monoyal drilling update
The company announced that the first hole in GMN’s phase two drilling programme at Monoyal, MCD008 was completed in mid-December 2020. The two additional drill holes were designed to test the potential for strong Cu-Mo mineralisation at a depth approximately 200m beneath the higher-grade intercepts recorded in MCD002, MCD003, and MCD004.
GMN said that MCD008 was drilled to a depth of 684.20m intersecting altered and mineralised tonalite, and assay results are pending. The company reported that the drilling of hole MCD009, designed to test below MCD002, commenced in mid-January.
Next steps
The company said that further work would include drilling of hole MCD009 on EL2306; stream sediment sampling, rock chip sampling, and soil sampling over the magnetic low area on EL2632; and close-spaced aeromagetic surveys when restrictions on movement of personnel from Australia are lifted.