DiscovEx has added an 80% interest in two tenements to the project, with the previous owner Gateway Mining (ASX: GML) retaining a 20% free carried interest until the decision to mine.
Geochemical sampling at the Spartan prospect identified an anomalous gold trend over 1.3km, with values up to 50 parts per billion.
There were also high tenor returns up to 100ppb (or 0.1 grams per tonne) gold.
The prospective anomaly remains open to the north east.
DiscovEx says additional sampling will continue over coming months and drilling approvals are in progress.
Edjudina is district with ‘numerous’ major gold deposits
The Edjudina project lies in the southern portion of the Laverton district, which is located around 700km north-east of Perth and hosts numerous major gold deposits, including Anglogold Ashanti’s (ASX: AGG) Sunrise Dam 10 million ounce gold mine, Saracen Mineral Holdings (ASX: SAR) 2Moz Carosue Dam gold mine and Matsa Resources (ASX: MAT) 0.5Moz Red October gold mine.
It is located in the highly mineralised Laverton Tectonic Zone of the Eastern Goldfields Province of the Yilgarn Craton and is considered prospective for gold and nickel-copper mineralisation.
Previous work on the Edjudina tenure, mostly during the 1980’s and 1990’s, included soil sampling, geophysics (both airborne and ground-based), air core drilling and minimal reverse circulation drilling.
The company had not that much of this exploration effort was undertaken at a time when the gold price was less than US$300/oz and therefore the hurdles to mining were much higher than today.
DiscovEx managing director Toby Wellman said the exploration team has been working to unlock the exploration potential of the project.
The definition of the Spartan prospect is a huge step in achieving this, he added.
“The significance of this gold anomaly cannot be ignored, especially concerning the size of the anomalous footprint and the grade of the results returned.”
Earlier this week Gateway Mining inked a deal with Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) giving Rio the option to acquire 100% of the iron ore rights in DiscovEx’s Sylvania project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Gateway currently holds a 1.5% gross royalty over two iron ore tenements within the project.
The divestment was geared towards allowing Gateway to maintain a focus on exploration and development of its flagship Gidgee gold project, also in WA.
