Great Boulder Resources Ltd (ASX:GBR) continues to grow the Saltbush discovery within the flagship Side Well Gold Project near Meekatharra in Western Australia with results of up to 3 metres at 18.59 g/t gold from 117 metres extending the high-grade lode 40 metres to the northwest.
The 3-metre result in hole 24SBRC018 was within 10 metres at 6.47 g/t from 117 metres while hole 24SBRC017 also returned a high-grade result of 4 metres at 4.40 g/t from 65 metres, including 1 metre at 13.85 g/t from 67 metres.
Twelve reverse circulation (RC) holes were drilled at Saltbush for a total of 1,560 metres and hole 24SBRC019 was another that produced a result – 12 metres at 0.68 g/t from 20 metres and 1 metre at 2.17 g/t from 35 metres.
Best intersection to date
Great Boulder’s managing director Andrew Paterson said: “The Saltbush discovery continues to grow, with the highest-grade intersection to date extending the strike of high-grade mineralisation by 40 metres to the northwest.
“Surface geochemistry indicates continued prospectivity along strike within a 2-kilometre geochemical anomaly, so the next round of drilling will test possible changes in direction, or a fault offset to the north.
"So far we’ve defined a near-surface, high-grade lode over 300 metres in length and we are confident that it will continue to grow.
“In the meantime, we have more results pending for Mulga Bill North and the aircore rig has moved south for our first drilling program at the Polelle Project, approximately 5 kilometres southwest of the Side Well tenements. The GBR team has been very busy and we have a lot of work in the pipeline.”
Plan view of recent results at Saltbush.
About the drilling
At Saltbush two fences of holes were drilled 40 metres and 80 metres north of previous coverage and holes 24SBRC017 and 24SBRC018 intersected high-grade mineralisation northwest of previous results.
The northern-most fence of holes did not intersect significant mineralisation and pXRF traverses to the north indicate a potential fault offset. This hypothesis will be tested in the next round of extensional drilling which is being planned.
Hole 24SBRC018’s thick, high-grade intersection indicates potential for mineralisation to improve in this direction.
This is consistent with previous observations that the mineralisation is focused on and around the contacts between a wedge of mafic rock surrounded on both sides by ultramafic.
What’s next?
A high-priority, 2-kilometre-long geochemical anomaly northwest of Saltbush has now been cleared by a heritage survey with initial aircore holes being planned to test strike extensions and repetitions of mineralisation within this area.
Great Boulder is awaiting assay results from 14 aircore holes at Mulga Bill North while a maiden 45-hole aircore program is underway at the Polelle Project, 5 kilometres southwest of Side Well, with results expected in about four weeks.
A heritage survey over the Side Well South area is scheduled in late July.