Strickland Metals Ltd (ASX:STK) may have uncovered a link to connect two historical gold resources with a combined strike of about 1 kilometre during aircore drilling south of its Yandal Gold Project’s Horse Well prospect in Western Australia.
The ASX-lister’s ongoing aircore program intersected gold mineralisation, with assay results showing a peak intercept of 36 metres at 1.2 g/t gold from 24 metres, including 16 metres at 2.5 g/t from 32 metres in HWAC1809.
Drill hole HWAC1809 has been described as a significant discovery as it potentially connects the high-grade, shallow, oxide gold mineralisation of the historical Filly SW with another historical resource, Warmblood.
Notably, the intersection was in an area previously thought to have been closed off to additional gold mineralisation and is about 3 kilometres to the southwest of the company’s recently discovered Marwari prospect.
Additionally, a well-developed, from-surface lateritic gold horizon was noted, spanning a strike of 350 metres over Warmblood.
Warmblood-Filly SW historical maximum downhole intercept gold results in relation to HWAC1809.
Limited exploration
Both Filly SW and Warmblood have been poorly explored and remain entirely open at depth, which represents a very compelling opportunity to substantially grow the resources.
Primarily consisting of shallow oxide gold intercepts, their style of mineralisation also differs from that observed elsewhere at Horse Well.
“The aircore program continues to yield promising results, this time having intersected significant gold mineralisation in an area previously thought to have been closed off to mineralisation,” Strickland chief executive officer Andrew Bray said.
“The position of HWAC1809 is strongly suggestive of the potential to link both (Filly SW and Warmblood) mineral resources together.
“Drilling at depth, and to the north and south, will be an early priority for 2024 drilling programs.”
Multi-element prospect
In addition to the regional aircore program, Strickland also undertook re-assaying of select historical reverse circulation (RC) pulps from Warmblood to identify the key pathfinder geochemistry associated with its high-grade gold.
The work showed the presence of silver, arsenic, bismuth, copper, molybdenum, tellurium, sulphur and tungsten.
“This bodes very well for the Great Western gold target, which sits in an analogous position about 6 kilometres to the northwest (on the same eastern granite contact),” Bray said.
The first line of drilling at Great Western has been completed, with samples dispatched to the laboratory yesterday for priority assaying.
In the meantime, significant veining with sulphides was confirmed in fresh rock, accompanied by similarly strong, coherent geochemical anomalism similar to that observed at surface.
Marwari update
Separately, the remaining RC and diamond assays from Marwari are expected to be received in the second half of January next year.
Strickland believes there is a very substantial gold system occurring at the target and expects these assays to provide further critical data on the orientation of the mineralisation.
The first two holes from Chetak are also expected to be released during the second half of January and will feed into planning for the major programs scheduled to commence in March.