Kaiser Reef (ASX:KAU) is assessing the potential to extend and discover further ‘high-grade’ gold mineralisation at the Nuggetty Reef mine.
The company reports drilling is now underway at its 100% owned Maldon Gold Project located 140km north-west of Melbourne. Nuggetty is located less than 5km from Kaiser’s operating Maldon gold processing plant.
The Nuggetty Reef Gold Mine was one of Australia’s highest-grade gold mines with recorded production of 301,000 ounces of gold at 187 grams per tonne.
Kaiser says limited historic drilling has shown mineralisation extends with grades up to 80g/t of gold. The first drill target is an extension of the previously identified massive sulphide mineralised zone.
The project is part of the company’s Victorian operations, which also includes the operating A1 Underground Mine and Maldon Gold Processing Plant.
Kaiser Managing Director Jonathan Downes says there is potential not just for extensions, but for entire parallel systems.
“We have all the ingredients and know the mineralisation is open ended. The Maldon gold field has an impressive history, having produced 2.1 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 28g/t, and the goldfield remains significantly underexplored. If this deposit was located in Western Australia, it would already have had multiple lives and systematic exploration, but in Victoria it has remained largely untouched since a major flooding event in 1918.”
The proposed diamond drilling plan comprises up to 9 collar locations around the Nuggetty licence area. The total program will comprise up to 16 (plus two daughter wedges within) diamond holes for 4,255m, which includes some provision to follow-up significant intercepts at each site during a phase-approach diamond drilling campaign.
The first drillhole will target a documented, massive sulphide mineralised lode close to the base of historical mining proximal to the granodiorite/host rock contact.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Kaiser Reef
