Platina Resources (ASX:PGM) has intersected gold mineralisation along a major shear zone at its Challa Project in Western Australia.
Aircore drilling returned hits of 12m @ 0.66 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including 4m @ 1.7g/t, from 100m in hole CHAC0155.
The latest program confirms the presence of gold mineralisation on Platina’s tenements, under cover on the southwest end of the recently identified Paynesville gold trend.
Managing Director Corey Nolan says the mineralised zone in hole in hole CHAC0155 is significant.
“It is the first greenfield gold intersection in drilling along the northwest trending splay of the craton-scale Challa shear and within western section of the Windimurra igneous intrusive complex,” he says.
“Platina’s exploration strategy has been proven highly effective by utilising a systematic approach of geophysical data re-interpretation, soil sampling, aircore drilling by targeting second order structures and rheological contrasting boundaries.
“Use of aircore drilling has been a very cost-effective way to discover gold under areas of shallow cover which lay untouched by historical prospectors.”
Nelson says the intercept potentially indicates that the entire splay along the rheologically contrasting geological boundary of a mafic and felsic igneous intrusive rock could be mineralised for over 17km on Platina’s tenure.
Meanwhile, hole CHAC0140 intersected 4m @ 0.37g/t gold from 72m along a north to south fault in the centre of the project.
Both the mineralised intersections were intercepted in areas where the aircore holes went down to a depth of 94m to 117m, which Platina says indicates the presence of some prominent faults or shear zones.
Results so far have provided encouragement for Platina to follow up with further drilling up-dip and along strike of the mineralisation.
The junior explorer, which has a market cap of $13.1 million, plans to resample the mineralised intersections as individual 1m lengths to understand the distribution of the grade and width of the structure.
If the wide scale distribution of mineralisation is returned, then deep and shallow dip slimline reverse circulation holes will be drilled as soon as possible, with an aircore rig to help define the geometry of the mineralisation.
Platina says drilling along strike will require additional heritage surveys to provide further access.
The Challa Gold Project is located in-between the Mount Magnet and Sandstone gold districts in Western Australia, 500km north-east of Perth.
The Sandstone province has produced over 1.3 million ounces of gold from numerous underground and open pit mining operations while Mount Magnet has produced over 6 million ounces since discovery in 1891.
Nearby, the Youanmi Gold Mine produced 670,000 ounces of gold throughout its lifetime and is currently the focus of new resource drilling of high-grade gold lodes.
The Challa Project lies within an area defined by more than 50 gold occurrences, on a previously unrecognised gold trend, the Paynesville Gold Trend.
The trend intersects with the Challa Shear, which Platina says is a classic Yilgarn Craton structural setting for million-plus ounce gold deposits.
The company will be presenting at the Noosa Mining Conference being held from 13-15 November 2024 at Peppers Noosa Resort. Click here to register. Mining.com.au is a media partner of this year’s event.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Platina Resources
