Aurumin Ltd (ASX:AUN) has been granted a new tenement that extends its gold footprint at the 946,000-ounce Sandstone Gold Operations in Western Australia.
Tenement E57/1254 adjoins Aurumin’s E57/1140 at the Central Sandstone Gold Project which hosts a resource of 881,000 ounces.
It contains three historical high-grade mines and Aurumin believes there is strong potential to take its overall Sandstone gold bounty beyond 1 million ounces.
Historical production
The historical Queen of the Range, Welcome and Phoenix mines were worked in the early 1900s and produced 197 tonnes at 10.58 g/t gold, 376 tonnes at 27.45 g/t and 82 tonnes at 5.92 g/t respectively.
Aurumin's managing director Brad Valiukas said: “Following recent divestments, the company has a clear focus on advancing our flagship 946,000-ounce Sandstone Gold Operations and generating the critical mass for future production.
"We are pleased to be further solidifying our tenement footprint in the Sandstone region with this additional tenement grant.”
Central Sandstone Gold Project with newly granted E57/1254.
Consolidates greenstone trend
Exploration will focus on a mapped north-northwest trending structure that occurs as an outcropping massive white quartz reef on a BIF or BIF-Mafic contact, with outcropping to sub cropping quartz blows for several hundred metres to the south.
Tenement E57/1254 further consolidates the greenstone trend that hosts the Bellchambers, Bulchina and Golden Raven mineralisation as well as Aurumin’s ‘Bird’ prospects.
There has been minimal exploration completed to date with anomalous surface sampling identifying mineralisation trends.
Old workings on E57/1254.
Initial drilling focused on immediate extensions to known deposits targeting the historical shafts and returning low level results.
Rock chip sampling by several operators since the early 2000s has returned results up to 8.5 g/t, with low level soil anomalism surrounding the historical workings.
Initial plans
Aurumin is continuing to compile and validate data for the project areas, including data sourced from open file reports and from the historical Troy Resources database inherited as part of the Sandstone Project acquisition.
The company plans to extend mapping and surface sampling in the area.
Central Sandstone is part of Aurumin’s Sandstone Gold Operations, which also includes the Birrigrin and Johnson Range projects, and has a total resource of 946,000 ounces.