Rox Resources Limited (ASX: RXL), in conjunction with its JV partner Venus Metals Corporation has announced highly encouraging results from its drilling campaign at the Youanmi gold project in WA.
The company reported that the drilling at the Youanmi Gold Project has intersected the highest gold grades seen in Rox’s program thus far. Significant hits from Youanmi South include 12m @ 12.7 g/t Au from 80m; 12m @ 8.5 g/t Au from 44m; and 4m @ 7.6 g/t Au from 76m
RXL said that the drilling at Plant Zone continues to define shallow, potential ‘base load mill feed’ with new results showing continuations to shallow mineralisation. Results include 4m @ 5.6 g/t Au from 24m; and 14m @ 1.7 g/t Au from 70m (depth continuation).
Youanmi gold project
The Youanmi gold project is located 480 km to the northeast of Perth, Western Australia. The project has a confirmed Mineral Resource Estimate of 1.19Moz Au. The project is owned 50% by Youanmi Gold Mine with option to increase to 70%, and 50% earn-in by regional JV’s
The Youanmi project is situated in the Youanmi Greenstone Belt, within the Southern Cross Province of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia. The structure of the Youanmi Project is dominated by the north-trending Youanmi Fault Zone. Most of the gold mineralisation seen at the project is hosted within north-northwest splays off the north-northeast trending Youanmi Fault.
Rox, through two joint ventures, holds large landholdings throughout the Youanmi Mining Centre. The joint venture with Oz Youanmi Pty Ltd covers 65km2, and ~ 10km x 7km wide, and surrounds the Youanmi Gold Mine and nearby extensions; while the joint venture with Venus Metals Corporation covers 302km2. The Youanmi joint venture covers 270km2 of this venture, which includes 40km of strike along the Youanmi Shear Zone.
Drilling at Youanmi
The company reported that it has drilled over 9,000 metres at Youanmi. Rox said that it has received results for around 75% of this amount.
RXL said that they are testing new conceptual targets that have the potential to open up new areas of mineralisation and drilling out positions of the significant Youanmi gold deposits or areas where there is potential for repeats.
High-grade results
Rox reported that the latest drill results at the Youanmi South prospect include some of the highest gold grades produced at the project so far.
RXL said that the drilling at the Youanmi South intersected notable results of 12m @ 12.7 g/t Au from 80m, 12m at 8.5g/t gold from 44m, 4m @ 7.6 g/t Au from 76m; and 4m at 11.2g/t gold from 110m.
The company said that the drilling at Plant Zone continues to define shallow, potential ‘base load mill feed’ with new results showing continuations to shallow mineralisation.
Significant results include 4m @ 5.6 g/t Au from 24m; 30m @ 1.0 g/t Au from 96m (depth continuation); and 14m @ 1.7 g/t Au from 70m (depth continuation).
Rox announced that its understanding of controls on mineralisation at Youanmi is rapidly increasing and as a result, its targeting methodology has improved markedly as demonstrated by the results.
The Company said that looks forward to potentially translating this into strong resource growth at the project
Exploration targeting at Youanmi
RXL reported that it is in the process of acquiring high-quality magnetic data (drone mag) and ground penetrating radar data to assist the targeting process.
The Company said that its exploration focus for this program is gold mineralisation hosted in Sheared greenstone / granite contact (e.g. Main Lode Shear Zone); Stock work mineralisation in the Youanmi Granite (e.g. Plant Zone); and Dilational jogs and shears outside the Main Lode Shear Zone (e.g. Commonwealth).
It may be noted that the historical mining at Youanmi was centred on the Main Lode Shear Zone deposits. Plant Zone, Commonwealth, and Youanmi South are unmined with mineralisation occurring from near-surface in all cases.
Next steps
RXL reported that the RC drill program is ongoing and will continue into October, with resource estimation work to follow thereafter.
Management comments
RXL’s Managing Director Alex Passmore said: “Following on from the release of initial results earlier this month these results confirm the new zone of mineralisation at Youanmi South as potentially being substantial.
We are continuing to delineate this zone with RC drilling and look forward to updating the market as further results are available. Drilling at the Plant Zone prospect, a granite stockwork style of mineralisation continues to add scale to the overall project resource.”
