Trek Metals (ASX:TKM) has begun an 8,000m drilling program at the Christmas Creek Gold and Rare Earth Project in Western Australia.
Drilling contractors have arrived onsite and will be testing several targets, including four high-priority gold prospects named Coogan, Martin, Zahn, and Willis.
Trek Metals, which has a market capitalisation of $18.48 million, aims to demonstrate continuity of the mineralisation, locate areas of increased grade, and expand numerous targets for future exploration.
CEO Derek Marshall says the first holes are targeted at the Martin prospect, which is a large and well-defined gold target.
“The program will then advance to systematically test the Coogan, Zahn, and Willis gold targets, and the Zahn South rare earth target,” Marshall says.
“Coogan is a large, well-defined gold mineralised system with only wide-spaced drilling completed previously. This season we are drilling the untested core of the system and stepping out to look for potential structures.
“This is an exciting prospect to be drilling, and we are itching to get in there to confirm the significance of what has been discovered to date. The fact the previous drilling intersected broad zones of low-grade gold is very significant and highlights the potential for a large system.”
Marshall adds that the Willis prospect has never seen a drillhole and the new zone identified to the north of Zahn seems “exciting” when put into context with the magnetic signature of the host rocks.
At the Coogan prospect, Trek Metals believes there is scope for it to host a potentially economic orebody, and is considered a target that warrants follow-up exploration.
Drilling will aim to test the centre of Coogan’s geochemical anomaly and test the margins of the anomaly against large-scale interpreted faults.
At Zahn, four lines of reverse circulation drilling are planned to cover the target, with a single line of drilling across the main part of a previously defined target at the prospect.
At the Martin prospect, drilling will expand the footprint of the basement-hosted mineralisation and provide further information to support the interpretation of the structural controls on the mineralised quartz veins.
Meanwhile, the company has planned two lines of aircore drilling at Willis, with additional contingent lines planned for immediate follow-up drilling depending on the results.
The Christmas Creek Project lies southwest of Halls Creek and comprises an unexplored, largely concealed district-scaler gold and rare earths exploration opportunity in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Trek Metals
