Navarre drilling confirms quartz reef at Tandarra
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Victorian gold explorer Navarre Minerals has confirmed strike extension of three lines of quartz reef structures at its Tandarra prospect, located 40 kilometres north of Bendigo in Victoria.
Navarre recently completed an 18 hole air‐core drilling program at its Bendigo North gold project, which returned a 90 per cent hit rate targeting three shallow trending lines of quartz veins over a 900 metre strike length.
The company has interpreted these structures to be extensions of the gold‐bearing quartz lodes it identified in a drilling campaign carried out in May.
A highlight of that previous drilling program was a weighted average 10 metre intercept of gold assaying 34.4 grams per tonne within an assay range of 17.9 grams per tonne to 44.3 grams per tonne starting at a shallow depth of 37 metres below surface.
The three potential anticlinal‐hosted lodes, or “tunnels of quartz”, as the company describes them have been named the Macnaughtan, the Tomorrow and the Reynolds.
A drilling campaign on these features has just been completed during which the Macnaughtan line of quartz was intersected by eight holes over 800m of strike.
The shallowest depth at Macnaughtan was at 33m below surface.
The Tomorrow was intersected six times over 600m, the shallowest of which was at 24m.
The Reynolds was intersected twice over 100m from as shallow as 77m.
“This drill program is extremely important in confirming the methodology of our exploration approach at Tandarra,” Navarre Minerals managing director Geoff McDermott said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The drilling encountered potential quartz lode structures in close proximity to our interpretation.
“What we have seen so far in the drilling supports our view that we are encountering typical Victorian goldfields style quartz saddle reef and associated spur structures sitting within the apexes of the three anticlinal structures.
“These quartz features have not been closed off by drilling to the north and are expected to repeat at regular intervals with depth.”
The air‐core samples from the latest drilling program have been sent off to be assayed and results are expected by October.
In August Navarre raised $3.2 million in a 1‐3 rights issue underwritten by Taylor Collison.
The company said these funds will be allocated to a $4.2 million program, including 110 line kilometres of geophysics and 50,000m of drilling.
That program begins at Tandarra this week.