Gold explorer Yandal Resources (ASX:YRL) has launched a reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its Ironstone Well-Barwidgee (IWB) Gold Project in Western Australia.
The company plans to drill for 4,500m across the area, first testing the ‘large-scale’ Oblique prospect and completing a handful of diamond pre-collars before moving on to the Quarter Moon prospect in the project area.
This RC work will act as a precursor to a diamond drilling program being designed to test for deeper extensions of the Oblique and Quarter Moon prospects, currently slated to commence in April.
Both prospects lie roughly 5km from Yandal’s 268,000-ounce Flushing Meadows mineral resource.
Yandal Managing Director Tim Kennedy says the new drilling work follows some ‘very encouraging’ results from drilling at Oblique in the final quarter of 2023.
“It’s great to report that a program, focused on extending the footprint of the prospect along strike and at depth, has commenced.
This is earlier than we would normally be drilling at Ironstone Well-Barwidgee due to the risk of inclement weather, but as we have such a full exploration program planned for 2024, it was important to get going at the earliest possible time.”
Alongside the upcoming diamond drilling at Oblique and Quarter Moon, Yandal also plans to drill a pair of 400m-deep diamond holes across the New England Granite prospect in the project area. These holes are to be co-funded by the Western Australian government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme.
Meanwhile, Yandal has kicked off a ‘large-scale’ soil sampling program across the IWB project to follow up on a previous orientation soil program in the area.
As part of the sampling work, Yandal will collect roughly 1,800 samples on a 400m-by-200m-spaced grid across the northern section of the project.
The company says this work should result in a ‘consistent and comprehensive’ geochemical dataset across a ‘significant’ portion of the IWB to help with future targeting for gold, lithium, and other commodities.
Images: Yandal Resources
