Carnavale Resources Ltd (ASX:CAV) continues to enhance the prospectivity of the Kookynie Gold Project in WA with aircore drilling returning strong gold results and revealing new zones along the high-grade corridor.
The company recently completed a fourth program of 104 aircore holes for 5,109 metres of drilling targeting the continuity of the gold anomalism identified by earlier drilling along the 1.1-kilometre untested zone section of the mineralised corridor.
This section hosts the high-grade McTavish East prospect to the southwest and the Champion South project to the northeast.
Gold highlights
Highlights from the fourth aircore program include:
- 10 metres at 5.78 g/t gold from 32 metres, including 6 metres at 9.08 g/t and 2 metres at 1.4 g/t;
- 4 metres at 13.28 g/t from 24 metres and 2 metres at 1.14 g/t from 32 metres;
- 8 metres at 4.98 g/t from 44 metres, including 6 metres at 6.37 g/t;
- 9 metres at 2.88 g/t from 54 metres (ends in mineralisation); and
- 2 metres at 4.50 g/t from 28 metres.
The high-grade mineralised zone at McTavish East has been extended by 150 metres to 700 metres of strike.
A new zone has also been identified under cover with a 200-metre strike along the McTavish East trend.
At McTavish North, strong, shallow gold mineralisation was intersected with results including:
- 8 metres at 2.17 g/t from 38 metres, including 4 metres at 3.78 g/t; and
- 6 metres at 0.50 g/t from 46 metres.
As a result, the McTavish North strike has been extended by 110 metres to 350 metres and remains open.
Success “very exciting”
CEO Humphrey Hale said: “The continued exploration success at our Kookynie Gold Project is very exciting, it has opened our eyes to the potential of other exploration targets within the tenement package.
"Our recent aircore drilling along the McTavish East mineralised corridor has extended the McTavish East prospect by 150 metres and discovered a new 200-metre mineralised zone in the regolith.
"In addition, we have expanded the strike of the mineralised envelope at McTavish North by 110 metres.”
Kookynie Gold Project is in the central portion of the historic Kookynie mining centre.
Carnavale’s strategy is to explore and define sufficient high-grade, high-value resources and reserves that can be mined and transported to a processing plant nearby.
Previous RC drilling by CAV at McTavish East identified that anomalous gold hosted in transported material is directly attributable to primary high-grade gold at depth within bedrock geology.
This has been confirmed again along the McTavish East trend with deeper high-grade gold anomalies discovered in the saprock beneath the weak transported anomalies.
Additional pathfinder
This shallow gold anomalism has provided an additional pathfinder to discover deeper primary high-grade mineralisation at Kookynie.
As part of the recent aircore program CAV drilled two lines of aircore across the strike extents of the McTavish North prospect. As a result, Carnavale has identified a strongly mineralised zone that strikes for 350 metres open to the northeast.
The anomalies at McTavish East and McTavish North have been extended and expanded by this recent drilling program.
Continued exploration success at Kookynie along the 2.5-kilometres McTavish East trend opens up the opportunity to discover further repeats at Champion South and northeast of Champion South along this major structure.
These new discoveries will be followed up with RC drilling to extend the high-grade mineralisation into the fresh rock.
Exploration strategy
Carnavale’s continuing work program includes:
- RC drill testing at depth and along strike from the shallow high-grade gold mineralisation defined by the recent aircore drilling.
- Interpretation of the multi-element geochemistry and drainage anomalies to provide further understanding of the morphology of the mineralising systems.
- Identify additional targets within the Kookynie tenement package.
- Grow resources and reserves providing an asset base to CAV.