In its maiden diamond drilling program, Riversgold Ltd (ASX:RGL) has delivered ‘significant’ gold hits up to 110 metres wide at the Northern Zone intrusive hosted gold project, just 25 kilometres from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
This project was previously earmarked with a conceptual exploration target ranging between 200-250 million tonnes at grades from 0.4 to 0.6 g/t gold, suggesting a potential yield of 2.5-4.8 million ounces of gold.
A notable highlight from the drilling program is the confirmation of high gold recovery rates, averaging 92.9%, following a 24-hour bottle roll cyanide extraction process.
Standout assays include:
- 110 metres at 0.60 g/t gold from 208 metres;
- 84 metres at 0.42 g/t from 315 metres; and
- 47 metres at 0.48 g/t from 216 metres.
Confirmed gold prospectivity
RGL chairman David Lenigas said: “With the Australian dollar gold price now pushing through $3,100 an ounce, the commerciality of these types of large-scale lower-grade gold deposits becomes significantly more viable.
“The potential scale of this project linked to its good indicative conventional gold recoveries and its great location, being so close to Kalgoorlie, makes Northern Zone a highly attractive project to drill out.
“The four diamond drill holes on this cross-section confirmed the gold prospectivity of the Northern Zone Project and we look forward to drilling further along strike to start building a maiden JORC-compliant resource early in the new year.”
Drill program
Drilling contractor DDH1 completed the drilling at Northern Zone using a combination of HQ3 and NQ2 diamond drilling.
The core was logged by contract geologists in Kalgoorlie with oversight from RGL geologists.
The drill program has:
- confirmed the gold mineralisation style;
- confirmed gold mineralisation widths and gold grades; and
- structural orientation of the gold mineralisation.
The detailed logging has shown that a gold mineralisation event has introduced significant micro-fracturing and quartz veining, with significant thicknesses of alteration also observed.
A central cross section completed as proof of model has validated a portion of the project, with multiple untested areas.
About the project
The Northern Zone Project is 26 kilometres east-southeast of the Kalgoorlie Super Pit and is readily accessed from the Bulong road, which is paved to within nine kilometres of the prospect site.
The last nine kilometres consist of a 4-kilometre high-quality haul road with the last five kilometres on a station road.
The topography is flat-lying, open scrub with several historical remnant gold and nickel excavation pits less than five kilometres from the prospect site.