Viking Mines (ASX:VKA) has hit gold in a second regional hole drilled 1.7km south of an initial hole at its Northern Duplex Target, which is now known as Bifrost, part of the First Hit Project in Western Australia.
The company, which has a market capitalisation of $10.6 million, plans to immediately undertake follow up work to identify the potential source of the gold.
Drilling on the second traverse has returned 5m @ 1 gram per tonne gold from 102m and 3m @ 1.3g/t from 115m.
These new intercepts sit within a broader mineralised zone of 23m @ 0.4g/t from 97m.
Viking also uncovered several other anomalous >40 parts per billion (ppb) zones, confirming several gold bearing pathways across the 1.2km wide east to west drill traverse, with individual metres reporting up to 2.3g/t gold.
Prior to phase-one drill testing by Viking there has been no bedrock drill testing of the more than 23km strike length on the explorer’s 100% controlled tenure over the prolific Zuleika shear.
The Bifrost target sits within the same stratigraphic horizon as the over 1.2-million-ounce Davyhurst Camp 40km to the south.
Managing Director Julian Woodcock says Viking has demonstrated extensive gold mineralisation pathways are present with the capacity to generate results of the tenor seen proximal to regionally relevant substantial gold deposits such as Ora Banda’s (ASX:OBM) Riverina.
The Riverina-Mulline Project hosts resources of 7.9 million tonnes @ 2.3g/t for 583,000 contained gold ounces and a reserve of 1.4 million tonnes @1.8g/t for 81,000 contained ounces.
Mineralisation at the Riverina deposit is well defined over a strike of about 1.2km and remains open along strike and depth.
“This first-pass wide-spaced drilling program covers a very large area >3.6km in strike length and has now delivered us two high priority follow up targets 1.7km apart, which warrant immediate further work,” Woodcock says.
“Work programs continue with auger drilling underway and the phase two reverse circulation drilling program to commence in March.”
Phase-two drilling will also begin immediately to test the separate 6km long >10ppb geochemical anomaly over the Central Duplex Target, with follow-up drilling at Bifrost to be incorporated once remaining assays have been received.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Viking Mines
