The opportunity to make company making discovery is drawing exploration companies to NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt, home to more than 105Moz of discovered gold.
It also home to several major gold-copper mines including Cadia Ridgway –one of Australia’s three largest gold producers – and recent new discoveries, like Alkane Resources’ (ASX:ALK) 10.9Moz gold equivalent Boda discovery (2019) which helped put the region on the map for investors.
Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM) is making strides in its exploration endeavours across its portfolio of projects in the highly endowed region, including Black Range where a 1,100m diamond drilling has kicked off after 30 years of inactivity.
The last drilling program carried out at the Sugarbag Hill prospect was done by Newcrest Mining in 1992 who were unable to find any high-grade feeder zones in their drilling or mapping.
Recent work by LGM uncovered coincident induced polarisation (IP) and geochemical targets that were not previously recognised by previous exploration, leading it to believe in the potential for gold mineralisation at depth.
With gold prices hovering around the US$2400/oz mark, explorers like LGM are more likely to gets boots on the ground to carry out drilling campaigns and find discoveries.
“The gold targets at Sugarbag Hill are large, compelling, and untested since Newcrest ceased exploration in 1992,” LGM CEO and managing director Christopher Bryne says.
“They also remain open as Newcrest’s exploration program did not identify the high-grade feeding targets.
“To Legacy Minerals’ advantage there has been both a significant advance in epithermal mineral system understanding, as well as a sustained growth in the gold price, which increases both the probability of success and the value of a gold discovery,” he says.
“Undrilled prospects of this nature are rare opportunities to test for high-grade gold and silver targets in mineral systems that are globally recognised for their potential to turn into high-margin gold mines.”
The strong resistive target areas are closely associated with the 2.2km long gold trend in soil sampling >20ppb gold (up to 296ppb gold), which includes a higher-grade gold zone that is 800m long at an average grade of 107.5ppb gold.
Recent rock chip samples collected along the resistivity trend have confirmed altered lithologies to be gold and silver bearing with assays up to 2.27g/t gold and 29.6g/t silver.
LGM says it is looking to follow up these encouraging results in search for a potential nearby feeder structure which demonstrates the potential at depth where an interpreted boiling zone is potentially located.
