Meeka Gold (ASX: MEK) has defined new gold zones and ‘favourable’ horizons for rare earth element mineralisation from a 13,000m AC drilling program at its Circle Valley Project in Western Australia’s Albany-Fraser mobile belt.
The drilling intersected two new zones of regolith gold, coincident with a magnetic feature that extends to the Fenceline prospect 5.5km to the east. Drilling also intersected 20m+ zones of saprolite clays analogous to the horizons hosting high-grade REE mineralisation 3km to the east.
The company believes that these two new zones of gold mineralisation provide a ‘significant’ exploration target, with follow-up lines of AC drilling planned to further test this shear system to the east, toward the Fenceline prospect in the second half of 2022.
Commenting on the update, Meeka Gold CEO Tim Davidson said: “These results are very exciting for the team as we are beginning to understand the geology and the various styles of mineralisation, both gold and REE, that exist at Circle Valley.
The two new gold zones identified in the north of the tenure are significant in both width of anomalism and strike potential. Both are located on the same shear zone as the Fenceline prospect 5.5km to the east where gold mineralisation has also been intersected in aircore drilling.
“we are beginning to understand the geology and the various styles of mineralisation, both gold and REE, that exist at Circle Valley”
With the conclusion of aircore drilling and while we wait for the remaining gold and REE assays to be returned from the laboratory, we have commenced drilling a number of RC holes at Anomaly A to test for gold in the interpreted shear zone below the aircore drilling.
We expect to receive further gold and REE results from the laboratory in the coming week and look forward to updating shareholders with respect to these results as they are received.”
The company’s regional AC drilling was designed to cross the interpreted strike of the two shear zones observed in aeromagnetic data, with gold mineralisation intersected over a length of 700m and 350m respectively. Since the beginning of January, 13,000m of AC drilling has been completed.
Regionally, the AC drilling also intersected a regolith profile of 10-20m thick orange/red coloured upper saprolite clays within the 20m+ thick saprolite layer. This corresponds with the orange/red upper saprolite profile intersected 3km to the west during the 2021 AC program, which has subsequently been shown to host significant intervals of REE mineralisation.
Significantly, these thicker zones of REE mineralisation sit on the margin of a large paleodrainage feature identified in airborne electromagnetic survey data compiled by Nova Energy during 2007 while exploring for uranium. This feature could also result in significant deposition of REE at the margin of the channel.
In addition to the regional AC work, a more-focused drilling program was completed at Anomaly A which was successful in defining the strike of mineralisation to the east and west of RC drill hole 22CVRC001. The hole, completed in January, had intersected 36m @ 2.69g/t Au.
AC drill results on background magnetics at Circle ValleyBased on this improved understanding of the strike of mineralisation at Anomaly A, follow-up RC drilling is now underway at Anomaly A targeting gold mineralisation within the interpreted shear zone defined by these AC results.
Meeka reports that follow-up work will involve further drilling for gold, re-assaying sample pulps for the total REE suite of elements, and reviewing chip trays to determine the potential for IAC-REE deposit formation.
Further AC drilling is also being planned in the second half of the year, and will be tasked with to increasing sample density across the project tenure.
Images: Meeka Gold Limited
