The 31-hole campaign was designed to target new high-grade exploration opportunities along the project’s Eastern Corridor, which has been a major focus of exploration over the past 18 months.

Drilling confirmed the presence of high-grade and wide, quartz-sulphide lode-style mineralisation below and along strike from a shallow 35,000 ounce resource at Fiona, within an emerging high-grade structure known as Helens East Fault.

Exploration at the Fault extended south from Fiona to intersect a zone of vein-style quartz-sulphide mineralisation over a strike length of approximately 1 kilometre.

New assays comprised 21mat 1.9 grams per tonne gold from 103m, including 2m at 5.98g/t gold from 122m; 5m at 2.6g/t gold from 111m; 1m at 15.2g/t gold from 63m; 4m at 2.71g/t gold from 82m; and 2m at 3.83g/t gold from 21m.

They are reported to reinforce previous high-grade intersections along the Helens East Fault position including 7m at 24.7g/t gold from 107m; 2m at 24g/t gold from 204m; 7m at 6.16g/t gold from 58m; and 8m at 6.83g/t gold from 22m.

Kin said the rapidly emerging quartz-sulphide vein-style mineralisation remains open in all directions along strike and down-dip, with potential for the current strike length to extend up to 2km with “all the hallmarks of being a large mineralised system”.

The company said Helens East Fault appears to be a second mineralised structure, running parallel to the Helens-Rangoon Fault which forms part of the Eastern Corridor series of deposits at Cardinia.

Managing director Andrew Munckton said the latest results have reinforced the view that Helens East, Helens Rangoon Fault, Cardinia Hill and Mystery Faults are interlinked parts of a large mineralised system at Eastern Corridor which is generally higher grade than other Cardinia deposits.

“These latest assays build on strong [existing] results and show there is an exciting new exploration opportunity based on a high-grade lode style of mineralisation at Cardinia, located below and along strike to some of our existing shallow deposits,” he said.

“We now know that the Eastern Corridor hosts a number of significant structures containing several undrilled targets … confirming the presence and continuity of high-grade mineralised zones opens up an important avenue for our exploration team to target new, high-grade discoveries to complement the shallower, bulk style resources we have already defined.”