Castlemaine hits impressive gold

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Castlemaine Goldfields has released results from exploration diamond drilling on the Sulieman Line of mineralisation at its Ballarat gold project.

These results are from the Basking Fault Zone (BFZ) in the Llanberris compartment and build on the knowledge Castlemaine has gained from exploration success in the adjacent Britannia compartment.

Best results came from hole CBU095, which was part of a three-hole program to test the BFZ within the Llanberris compartment.

The hole returned an impressive gold intersection of 29.1 metres at 32.1 grams per tonne gold from 230.7m.

This included 6.95m at 6.3 g/t gold from 241.05m, and 9.3m at 91.5 g/t gold from 250.5m.

“The 29.1 metre interval comprises 70 per cent quartz veining with the lower massive quartz section associated with a strong west dipping fault zone,” Castlemaine said in its announcement.

“This lower fault zone can be traced 140 metres along strike in existing drilling with the nearest hole, CBU054, 45 metres to the south, containing 4.0 metres at 8.1 grams per tonne gold including 1.4 metres at 20.2 grams per tonne gold.”

Castlemaine said the horizontal width for the CBU095 quartz intersection is estimated to be approximately 21m with its height still unknown.

The company is now planning follow up diamond drilling from the Lower Llanberris decline to test this new gold target across approximately 40m of strike.

“This is one of the best underground gold intersections recorded to date in the Ballarat goldfield, and reinforces our conviction that the best area to explore and mine for gold at Ballarat is at the northern part of the goldfield,” Castlemaine Goldfields managing director Matthew Gill said in the company announcement.

 
“As detailed in our ASX release on 26 May 2011, the Sulieman Line of mineralisation in Britannia holds potential for a third ore source, and it was predicted that extensions to that gold mineralisation could be found in the adjacent Llanberris compartment.

“Now that we have returned to drill the Basking Fault in the Llanberris, it is very pleasing that the results are supporting our geological theories.

“We are currently extending the existing underground decline and this will pass close by this intersection. We now plan to conduct in-fill drilling with the objective of being able to add this mineralisation into our near-term gold production plan.

“This represents a great upside for us, as we progress on schedule towards first gold production in September this year.”