In a diamond drilling campaign described as having "delivered in spades”, Astral Resources NL (ASX:AAR) has returned thick high-grade intercepts up to 139 g/t gold at the Theia prospect within its 100%-owned Mandilla Gold Project in Western Australia.
Particularly, drill hole MDRCD830 recorded 221 gram-metres of gold over the length of the hole, including two thick zones of gold mineralisation with 13 occurrences of visible gold.
These results, the final three of a six-hole diamond drilling program for 1,822.3 metres completed at Theia last November, will support a potential increase in Mandilla’s resource confidence to the indicated category.
The project’s mineral resource estimate of 37 million tonnes at 1.1 g/t gold for 1.27 million ounces of contained gold was updated in July last year.
READ: Astral Resources hits up to 211 g/t gold in wide high-grade intersections at Theia
Among the new results, the best from MDRCD830 include:
- 29 metres at 2.78 g/t gold from 324 metres, including 0.3 metres at 139 g/t from 328.85 metres and 0.3 metres at 78.7 g/t from 349 metres;
- 2 metres at 14.5 g/t from 211 metres, including 0.3 metres at 94.5 g/t from 212.7 metres;
- 28 metres at 1.36 g/t from 122 metres (previously reported as an RC pre-collar);
- 20 metres at 1.03 g/t from 221 metres, including 0.3 metres at 18.5 g/t from 222.55 metres and 1 metre at 11.6 g/t from 240 metres;
- 5.85 metres at 1.89 g/t from 311.75 metres, including 0.3 metres at 33.2 g/t from 316.2 metres; and
- 4.14 metres at 2.36 g/t from 393.76 metres.
Other strong results were:
- 0.4 metres at 27.2 g/t gold from 318 metres in MDRCD832; and
- 18.4 metres at 0.91 g/t from 310 metres in MDRCD841.
Map showing location of MDRCD830 and MDRCD841.
“Outstanding results”
“The diamond drill program completed in the December quarter last year has delivered in spades,” Astral Resources managing director Marc Ducler said.
“With the latest DD hole, MDRCD830, returning 221 gram-metres over its length, this means that, over the six-hole program, an average of 137 gram-metres of gold over the length of the hole was achieved – an outstanding result.
“The program is likely to support an increase in the resource confidence of the Theia deposit at depth, which will potentially allow for the conversion of inferred mineral resources into the higher confidence indicated mineral resources category.
“The geology team has wasted no time in getting back to work this year with a 2,500-metre aircore program underway at Feysville and a 2,500-metre RC program scheduled to commence at Kamperman in mid-February.”
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