Great Southern Mining Limited (ASX: GSN) has announced shallow high-grade gold hits including 11m @ 7.9 g/t gold from the 20-hole RC drill program at the Company’s Mon Ami Gold Project in Western Australia.
The company reported that the drill program at Mon Ami has identified significant high-grade gold intersections including 11m @ 7.9 g/t gold, including 4m @ 15.9 g/t gold from 26m, in 20MARC011; and 4m @ 12.4 g/t gold from 80m in 20MARC003.
GSN said that high-grade gold zones are interpreted to be localised at the intersection of cross-cutting splays along the regional shear with drilling and recent mapping identifying a number of these splay zones providing immediate follow-up drill targets.
Mon Ami gold project remains open along strike and at depth with little drilling outside the existing resource area.
Mon Ami gold project
The Mon Ami gold project is located 12km south of Laverton, Western Australia. The project lies within the Mt Margaret Mineral Field of the north-eastern Goldfields of Western Australia (Laverton Greenstone Belt).
Mon Ami consists of Mining Lease M38/1256 and Exploration Licence E38/2829. GSN holds 100% ownership of the tenements.
Encouraging gold mineralisation was identified at Mon Ami in reverse circulation drilling undertaken by Valleybrook Investments in late 2017. In June-July 2018, GSN completed a maiden drilling program at Mon Ami comprising 5,821 drill meters from 40 RC drill holes (MLRC011 to 050) designed to test the continuity of that gold mineralisation. Significant intercepts were reported from the drilling.
Project has, in accordance with JORC (2012), a Resource of 1.1 Mt @ 1.7 g/t Au for 59 Koz.
Drilling at Mon Ami
The company had recently commenced a Reverse Circulation (RC) drill program within the Mon Ami Gold Project. The program consisted of 2763 metres and was designed to test the mineralised north-north-east (NNE) striking regional shear zone.
This included areas which sit outside or on the edge of the current southern extent of the Resource area; areas where historic shafts are known to have extracted gold (in the early 19th century) and situated along the shear; and areas where the presence of cross cutting or NE splays have been mapped in close proximity to the main shear zone.
GSN has now reported encouraging drilling results from the 20-hole Reverse Circulation (RC) drill program at Mon Ami.
Significant shallow high-grade gold
The company reported that high-grade intersections were reported from the 20 RC holes (20MARC0001 – 20MARC0020).
Significant hits include 11m @ 7.9 g/t gold from 26m including 4m @ 15.9 g/t gold in 20MARC011 and 4m @ 12.4 g/t gold from 80m in 20MARC003 (4m composite sample).
Important intersections using a 0.2 g/t Au cutoff and ≤ 1m internal dilution are as shown below.
GSN said that the excellent results indicate that high-grade gold is localised within quartz veining at the lithological contact of a sedimentary sequence and a basalt unit, within the regional shear zone.
The company noted that gold appears to be concentrating at the areas of cross cutting splays demonstrated by the recent high-grade gold.
Updates and next steps
GSN announced that the processing and interpretation of recent results are underway. The company said that future exploration includes assessment of recent drill results.
The company said that there may be further scope to target the intersection points of the NE splays at the regional shear zone to target the high-grade mineralisation.
Great Southern announced that the recent results will be incorporated into the resource model and planning of the next phase of drilling at Mon Ami is already underway.
Management comments
GSN’s Executive Chairman, John Terpu said: “The latest round of drilling at Mon Ami has highlighted the significant potential of this Project to grow both in terms of grade and ounces. It just needs more drilling. The shear zone is the target area that keeps on producing significant intersections. What is more compelling is that we now are seeing the high-grade mineralisation close to surface.
This is a significant development for the Project as it has highlighted that there is potential to raise the grade profile if we can continue to discover these high-grade quartz veins.
With every hole we are gaining a better understanding of the mineralisation system and now believe there may be several high-grade splays associated with the shear zone. We are looking forward to fully interpreting the new drill results and geological findings, to aid in the next round of planned drilling.”