Gascoyne Resources’ emerging Gilbey’s North discovery is continuing to rewrite the book on the future of its Dalgaranga project, Western Australia, with the latest hole, drilled with a new orientation, pushing the high-grade mineralisation another 30m deeper (reports MiningNews).
The hole, targeting an area down-dip of the record RC intercept of 54m at 6.55 grams per tonne gold from 116m, including 12m at 20.1gpt, has delivered what the company has heralded as an “exceptional” result: 32m at 8.58gpt from 167m, including 14m at 16.4gpt.
The hole, which collared at a 45 degree angle further to the north-east of the high-grade intercept to test the orientation and true width of the developing high-grade gold system, has helped confirm the mineralisation is consistent and remains open at depth.
Follow-up holes into the hanging wall have been completed and are awaiting assay.
Additionally, follow-up drilling on a section 20m of the south of the earlier intercept has returned assays such as 31m at 4.68gpt from 132m, including 5m at 18.1gpt.
A wildcat hole drilled to the north-west of GIlbey’s North has returned 2m at 12.13gpt from 133m, including 1m at 22.7gpt.
The thin, near-bonanza-grade hit is still being assessed, but may be related to the structural offset of the Gilbey’s North system.
Managing director Simon Lawson said with so much data being generated, the company would hold off on its maiden resource estimate until later this month to allow it to incorporate its more recent validation holes.
The resource is now expected before the end of August, just eight months after discovery, and will largely be limited to 50m-deep holes.
The Gilbey’s North discovery was originally conceived as a high-grade, relatively narrow extension to the G-Fin lode system, but is increasingly larger, with the hanging wall now seen as a “regional-scale” east-west fault system running at right angles to the initial stratigraphic-hosted north-south footwall G-Fin extension.
“Given the consistently high-grade of the east-west mineralised zone, it is imperative that we understand the potential volume of this new mineralised zone as it will have a significant impact on our initial mineral resource estimate for Gilbey’s North,” Lawson said.
The clash between the two systems has apparently created a broad, gold-rich damage zone that may also highlight the overlooked potential of smaller offsets previously seen throughout the main Gilbey’s mine sequence.
Gilbey’s North is just north of the mainstay Gilbey’s pit, and is less than 1km from the 2.5Mtpa processing plant.
Results from drilling of the Gilbey’s Eastern Footwall and Gilbey’s South targets are also being collated, and should help further define the potential of the area.
