Riversgold Ltd (ASX:RGL) continues to advance site operations at its Northern Zone Gold Project in Western Australia with a mineralisation report and application for Mining Lease underway and a further 28 aircore drill holes planned.
Significant shallow gold intercepts from the recent drill program to be followed up include 7 metres at 3.90 g/t gold from 35 metres, 4 metres at 3.97 g/t from 32 metres, 4 metres at 6.92 g/t from 57 metres and 5 metres at 12.27 g/t from 32 metres, including 1 metre at 58.09 g/t from 34 metres.
The company has uploaded all drilling data at the Northern Zone Project into Leapfrog software, enabling the generation of a gold grade model.
A further 28 drill holes are planned for around 1,960 metres of drilling. This high-impact campaign was designed in Leapfrog to follow up the latest high-grade intercepts and to optimally target the expanding footprint of the mineralised porphyry.
Interpreted gold grade 3D model of Northern Zone.
Drilling continues to validate the geological model for the previously announced exploration target at the project of 200 million tonnes to 250 million tonnes at a grade of 0.4 g/t gold to 0.6 g/t gold for an exploration target of 2.5 million ounces to 4.8 million ounces.
“Northern Zone continues to deliver highly material and significant mineralised intercepts over an increasing porphyry footprint and this has framed our next round of drilling,” Riversgold chair David Lenigas said.
“Importantly, we have now made the decision to complete a mineralisation report so that an application can be made to convert the tenement to a mining licence.
“The recent set of significant high-grade gold assays at Northern Zone have continued to expand the gold mineralised footprint of the porphyry over a much larger area than originally thought and it has confirmed the presence of a significant gold mineralised system, that is located just 25 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, with all of the benefits of being brilliantly located to excellent roads and infrastructure.”
Northern Zone Project Map showing proximity to the Kalgoorlie 'Super Pit'.
Drilling planned
The drill program aims to target and extend previous higher-grade gold intercepts via a series of SW-NE-orientated extensional lines using a nominal 20-metre spacing.
Results to date indicate that Riversgold is successfully continuing to probe the porphyry over an increasing footprint within the tenement. Mineralisation remains open in multiple directions, leading to further drilling campaigns planned to test for the potential extents of the mineralised porphyry.
Proposed drill collar plan with gold grade contours from all drilling results to date.
In the near term, the company will complete a mineralisation report and application for a mining lease.
Parallels with Saturn's Apollo Hill
Conceptually, the company draws parallels between Northern Zone and Saturn Metals’ Apollo Hill Project, noting similarities based on Saturn’s PEA that suggests the potential for a sizeable low-grade heap leach operation.
The Apollo Hill Gold Project is 175 kilometres due north of the Northern Zone.
Riversgold says that the Apollo Hill development — with a resource estimate of 105 million tonnes at 0.54 g/t gold, totalling 1.839 million ounces — serves as a benchmark for its aspirations at Northern Zone, albeit with the potential for Northern Zone to be an even larger project.