S2 Resources Ltd (ASX: S2R) has announced a highly encouraging update from its base of till (BOT) drilling near its Aarnivalkea gold prospect in northern Finland.
The company reported that the BOT drilling has defined a new gold mineralised trend 2 kilometres east of Aarnivalkea. S2R said that the BOT holes grade up to 4.3g/t gold with associated arsenic, antimony, and copper anomalism.
S2 Resources noted that gold and multielement anomalism is associated with a north-south striking zone of strongly deformed, altered and quartz-arsenopyrite veined bedrock. The company reported that it has identified over a 1.2 kilometre strike length so far.
The company said that 10.7g/t gold and pathfinder elements in a BOT hole further east of this may represent a fault offset southern continuation of this trend.
S2R announced that diamond drilling is scheduled to commence mid-March.
Aarnivalkea prospect
S2 Resources has a large area of the prospective Central Lapland Greenstone Belt (CLGB) of arctic Finland under tenure via a mix of Exploration Licence applications and granted Exploration Licences.
The CLGB hosts a number of significant deposits and prospects, including Agnico Eagle’s Kittilä gold mine, Anglo American’s Sakatti nickel-copper–platinum deposit, and Boliden’s Kevitsa copper-nickel mine.
S2R was successful in getting the central corridor of the Paana lease fast tracked to grant and was given the prospect name of Aarnivalkea.
Aarnivalkea was subsequently reconnaissance drilled in July 2019 on 320 x 40m centres to 80m depth and to date has yielded encouraging results with broad zones of strong shearing and alteration and several intervals of highgrade gold mineralisation.
BOT drilling at Aarnivalkea
The company announced that base of till (BOT) drilling was undertaken at Aarnivalkea in lieu of planned extensional diamond drilling, due to unusually warm conditions in the arctic preventing the ground from freezing and restricting rig access in swampy areas.
It may be noted that the new BOT anomaly is largely located on a gentle rise which can be drilled year-round, and diamond drilling to test this is planned to commence as soon as possible.
BOT drilling
BOT drilling retrieves a single end of hole sample at the interface between the base of the glacial till and the subjacent bedrock, and is essentially a way of collecting rockchip samples from beneath the transported cover.
The sample is a mixture of clay and rock rubble, with the latter representing material eroding from the bedrock. Unlike deeply weathered terrains such as Australia, where rocks oxidise and gold disperses, in glaciated terrains such as Finland the bedrock is fresh and there is very little lateral dispersion of gold, so targets are very narrow, and unless on-line drill hole spacing is very close, mineralisation may be missed.
The presence of one anomalous hole per traverse is considered encouraging, and the repetition of this on several adjacent traverses more so.
New 1.2 km zone identified
The company reported that the reconnaissance BOT drilling undertaken 2 kilometres to the east of the Aarnivalkea gold prospect to test beneath an ionic leach gold anomaly has identified a 1.2 kilometre long north-south striking zone of strongly altered and deformed bedrock with associated strong gold, arsenic, antimony, and copper anomalism.
The company said that the bedrock in this zone comprises strongly sheared and sericite, silica, carbonate, sulphide altered greenstones with quartz-arsenopyrite veining.
Peak value of 4.3 g/t gold
S2R reported numerous samples grade greater than 0.5 g/t gold, with a peak value of 4.3 g/t gold, and these have associated anomalous arsenic, antinomy and copper pathfinder elements. This corridor is open along strike to the south.
Fault offset southern continuation hits 10.7g/t gold
The company announced that it is likely that the southern extension of this corridor has been terminated by a late fault and displaced 1.5 kilometres to the northeast.
The company said that there, another line of reconnaissance BOT drilling has intersected gossanous quartz assaying 10.7g/t gold together with a similar suite of pathfinder elements.
BOT drilling to continue
S2 Resources reported that the BOT drilling is ongoing with the aim of further defining the extent of this new trend and its potential fault-offset continuation.
Next steps
S2R said that the initial diamond drilling of the prospect is scheduled to commence in March. The company said that the prospect area can be drilled in either winter or summer.