THE DRILL SERGEANT: Gold Road Resources has received further high-grade gold intercepts, which it claims has identified at least three new gold targets in the Central Bore Area across its wholly-owned Yamarna Belt, located in Western Australia.

The latest results from Central Bore were achieved on Central Bore North and the Attila Trend.

“Our continued exploration success and continuing resource delineation in the Central Bore area is providing Gold Road with a solid foundation for us to move the Company into a development phase and future gold production in the region,” Gold Road Resources chairman Ian Murray said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

Gold Road said around two thirds, (~100,000 metres) of the company’s 2012 drilling program will focus on finding and proving-up new gold discoveries across the tenements.

This drilling will be carried out on the Tatar, VTEM, Dorothy Hills, Tobin Hill targets.

The remaining third of the drilling campaign (~50,000m) will focus on Gold Road’s advanced projects at Central Bore and Attila Trend.

 

Drill-hole plan showing location of Attila Trend gold deposits. Source: Company announcement

 

Gold Road’s current extensional and infill drilling program along the Attila Trend aims to identify additional higher-grade resources to supplement production from the high-grade Central Bore Project in order to justify the development of our own moderate-tonnage processing plant.

It is also aiming to increase the overall resource with the aim of growing towards a bulk-tonnage operation.

The company expects this drilling to improve its confidence in the projects and expand the existing resources.

Exploration highlights from activities located on or around Gold Road’s advanced projects include:

Khan North

–    1 metre at 17.35 grams per tonne gold from 112 metres.

Alaric

–    1m at 30.28g/t gold and 1m at 4.62 g/t gold from 77m; and

–    1m at 12.03g/t gold from 126m.

Attila North

–    1m at 23.40g/t gold from 74m within 34m zone at 0.98g/t gold from 51m; and

–    1m at 11.88g/t gold from 69m within 4m zone at 3.47g/t gold from 67m.

Attila South

–    6m at 3.17g/t gold from 94m within 20m zone.

Elvis – Hann South area

–    Drilling has identified mineralised zones associated with five trends: Elvis; Contact; Attila; Tamerlane; and Hann.

Central Bore North

–    4m at 6.11g/t gold from 119m, including 1m at 18.4g/t gold;

–    3m at 3.64g/t gold from 146m and 3m at 5.37g/t gold; and

–    5m at 3.84g/t gold from 41m, including 1m at 13.4g/t gold.

Gold Road also conducted a Sub-Audio Magnetics (SAM) geophysical survey across the Central Bore Area, which confirmed the existing mineralised structures and identified at least three new targets.

The company is of the opinion SAM could be a quick and cost effective tool in gold exploration in other parts of the Yamarna Belt by assisting it to generate and narrow-down new drill targets.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: IMX Resources identified an Exploration Target tonnage of 150 million tonnes to 230 million tonnes at 25 per cent to 35 per cent iron for the Tomahawk iron prospect, located 25 kilometres southeast of the Cairn Hill magnetite-copper mine in South Australia.

The new Tomahawk Exploration Target estimate brings the current global iron Exploration Target tonnage for the company’s 100 per cent-owned Mt Woods iron project to between 200Mt to 380Mt.

This figure includes the Exploration Target for the Bumblebee and Fitzgerald Dam iron prospects the company previously reported in November 2009.

 

Location of Tomahawk Exploration Target and untested magnetite anomaly targets. Source: Company announcement

 

“IMX is now approaching a potential one billion tonnes combined iron resources and targets for the Mt Woods iron project based on exploration target tonnages and the recently announced iron resource of over half a billion tonnes at Snaefell,” IMX Resources managing director Neil Meadows said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Our South Australian magnetite strategy is on track with the Mt Woods iron project continuing to develop into a major iron ore asset with enormous upside growth potential.”

The target tonnage was estimated along a 3km strike length of the main Tomahawk magnetite prospect.

IMX said it still has a number of other magnetic targets nearby, which it has yet to drill-test that missed out on being included.

The company is now planning a number of drill campaigns over the next nine months to test these and other targets with a view to adding them to the Mt Woods iron project global exploration target resource base.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Doray Minerals has announced an increase and upgrade to the high-grade Wilber Lode resource at the 80 per cent-owned Andy Well gold project.

The combined Inferred and Indicated resource for the Wilber Lode now totals 680,000 tonnes at 15.1grams per tonne for a total of 331,000 contained ounces

”The aim of this resource update was to upgrade as much as possible of the existing Wilber resource from Inferred to Indicated classification, in preparation for detailed mining studies and delineation of a maiden mining reserve”, Doray Minerals managing director Allan Kelly said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

The Andy Well gold project is located approximately 45 kilometres north of Meekatharra, in Western Australia’s Murchison Region.

Schematic N-S Long Section of Wilber Lode resource with grade domains and classification. Source: Company announcement

“This updated resource represents a small increase to the December 2011 total resource, however includes an 18 per cent increase to the indicated component of the Wilber Lode resource ounces, increasing it to 89 per cent of the total Wilber Lode resource.” Kelly said.

Drilling continues at Andy Well, testing for further extensions to the Wilber Lode resource.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Navarre Minerals has hit a further high-grade drill intercept on the Tomorrow line of quartz reef at the Tandarra prospect, part of the company’s Bendigo North project, located north of Bendigo in Victoria.

The RC drilling intercept of one metre at 33.6 grams per tonne gold at a depth of 44 metres is contained inside a four metre interval grading 9.4 grams per tonne gold.

The latest intercept is situated approximately 160m north of the company’s best intercept to date of 34.4 grams per tonne gold over a 10 metre interval.

The Navarre also intersected further broad gold mineralisation of 25m at 0.8 g/t gold, including 6m at 1.9 g/t gold from 41m down hole.

Navarre is conducting a 25,000 metre RC drilling campaign at Tandarra targeting shallow gold-bearing quartz reefs and is seeking to build a mineral resource at the project by the end of 2012.

 

Satellite image of Tandarra prospect showing location of diamond
drilling, significant drill intercepts and status of RC drilling.
Source: Company announcement

 

“We are encouraged by the broad zone of shallow mineralisation in RCT025 as it now links approximately 320 metres of wide zones of mineralisation in the RC results, which themselves are part of the 2.5 kilometres of confirmed strike established by previous AC drilling,” Navarre Minerals managing director Geoff McDermott said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

Navarre believes mineralisation at Tandarra is analogous to the Bendigo Goldfield, approximately 40kms to the south, insofar as nuggety high grade gold is dispersed throughout an envelope of lower grade material.

“We are particularly pleased by the high grade result in RCT050 as we expect to find high grade gold results as our drill density increases in this style of mineralization,” McDermott said.

The relatively shallow depth of the gold mineralisation it has identified so far has Navarre working to establish whether an open pit operation is feasible as a means of mining the high-grade gold within a broader envelope of mineralised material.

“Tandarra was identified by modern exploration techniques, which see through the covering sediments, and followed up by inexpensive scout AC drilling,” McDermott explained.

“Our challenge now is to define the major gold-bearing reefs near surface and to investigate the quartz reefs which repeat at depth, much as they do at Bendigo and other Victorian goldfields.”

Navarre Minerals said it expects to release more drill results from 25 RC holes at Tandarra that have been completed but await assay results, as well as further RC and diamond holes that have yet to be drilled as part of the current program.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Sirius Resources has claimed discovery of high-grade gold mineralisation in its first reverse circulation (RC) drilling program undertaken at the Earlobe prospect on the company’s 100 per cent-owned Polar Bear project in Western Australia.

Sirius said it had intersected gold mineralisation in a number of RC holes drilled beneath earlier shallow reconnaissance drill intersections carried out in in November 2011.

 

Earlobe prospect, showing location of drillholes and gold
intersections in recent aircore and RC drilling. Source: Company
announcement

 

Key intercepts and highlights of the recent drilling include:

20 metres at 3.18 grams per tonne gold from 36 metres, including 2 metres at 26.6 grams per tonne gold from 36 metres; and

19m at 1.56 g/t gold from 46m, including 4m at 6.09 g/t gold from 50 metres.

The drilling also encountered a two metre zone exhibiting variable gold in repeat assays (1.4, 5.04 and 24.9 g/t gold from 82m), which the company said suggests nuggety gold could be present.

Sirius is of the opinion the distribution of the gold intersections on two lines of drilling at the Earlobe North zone suggests there are several gently to moderately east dipping lodes open down dip (to the east) and along strike of the drilling it has completed so far.

The company has taken encouragement from these results, as they are the first gold-focused RC drilling program to be conducted at Polar Bear and that the project is located between three major known goldfields.

The project neighbours the 10 million ounce Norseman camp 30 kilometres to the south, the 8 million ounce St Ives camp 60km to the north and the 2 million ounce Higginsville gold mine 20km to the north-northwest.

“It is very encouraging to make this discovery – it vindicates our belief in the Polar Bear project – a belief which led us in 2010 to purchase Barrick’s 80 per cent interest in the project to obtain full ownership,” Sirius Resources managing director Mark Bennett said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“To achieve such results in the first RC drilling program, and also beneath transported sediments and unconformable Tertiary rocks, attests to the untapped prospectivity of the area, despite it being in the heartland of the Eastern Goldfields.”

Sirius said it intends to carry out follow up RC drilling to scope out the extent, orientation and continuity of the mineralisation once a drill rig can be sourced and drilling approvals obtained.