THE DRILL SERGEANT: Gold Road Resources (ASX: GOR) has drilled the first Western Australian Government Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS) co‐funded diamond hole (15SYDD0003B) at the Toppin Hill Dolerite prospect.

The Toppin Hill Dolerite occurs in the Breelya‐Toppin Hill Gold Camp Scale Target, which is within the company’s South Yamarna Joint Venture with Sumitomo Metal Mining Oceania Pty Limited.

Sumitomo is earning up to a 50 per cent interest in the JV.

Gold Road said the drilling has confirmed mineralisation that had been identified in previous RC drilling, which was announced in May 2014, achieving an intersection of:

9.14 metres at 3.48 grams per tonne gold from 143m, including 3.48m at 6.44g/t gold from 143.82m.

Gold Road explained that drill‐hole 15SYDD003B was drilled as a standalone deep stratigraphic hole designed to drill through a differentiated dolerite sill to provide detailed stratigraphic and structural data.

The hole intersected the previously reported gold mineralisation, confirming an earlier RC intercept of 12m at 4.65g/t gold (14SYRC0002), which was within 10m of the co-funded diamond hole.

Mineralisation is clearly hosted within a discrete shear zone with quartz‐sulphide lode structures coincident.

Grades from the drilling included a central higher‐grade zone of 3.48 metres with sequential grades returned of 5.44g/t, 7.04g/t, and 9.46g/t, for an intercept grade of 6.44g/t gold.

The mineralised structure is hosted within a north‐west striking shear zone that cuts through a differentiated dolerite sill located between two north striking felsic intrusions.

Strike length of identified gold mineralisation is 800 metres, which remains open down dip.

Gold Road indicated it is now conducting a comprehensive geochemical sampling, downhole geophysical surveying and structural analysis to produce a structural and geological model for the Toppin Hill Dolerite, and assist in targeting follow up drilling under consideration for 2016.

“This new drilling has confirmed the detailed geology of the Toppin Hill discovery as being hosted within a very prospective differentiated dolerite sill,” Gold Road Resources executive director Justin Osborne said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The discrete nature of the shear zone, and visually obvious gold mineralisation provides us with a very good target model to follow up on.

“Along with the high‐grade discovery recently made at Smokebush in a similar dolerite, we now have two exciting projects to focus JV attention on going into 2016.”

Email: perth@goldroad.com.au

Website: www.goldroad.com.au

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) announced further high-grade platinum group metal (PGM) mineralisation and the first major intercept of zinc-lead-silver mineralisation from the Red Hill prospect.

The Red hill prospect is part of the company’s Broken Hill project in New South Wales.

Impact completed drill hole RHD014, which the company explained tested the western part of the ultramafic unit at Red Hill and underlying metasedimentary rocks.

The hole returned:
25.4 metres at 0.6 grams per tonne platinum, 1.3g/t palladium and 0.1g/t gold (2g/t Pt+Pd+Au), 0.3 per cent copper and 0.3 per cent nickel from 11m down hole, including 3.3m at 2.1g/t platinum, 4.9g/t palladium and 0.4g/t gold (7.4 g/t Pt+Pd+Au), 0.7 per cent copper and 0.6 per cent nickel from 32.4m down hole.

“The ultramafic In RHD014 was only sampled from 11 metres down hole and mineralisation is open towards the surface,” Impact Minerals explained in its ASX announcement.

“The upper eleven metres are being prepared for assay.”

Impact said the mineralisation occurs within and immediately below the host ultramafic intrusion and also within a layer of metasedimentary rocks several metres thick within the ultramafic.

RHD014 is close to similar near-surface mineralisation Impact intersected with drill hole RHD002 (16m at 1.4g/t Pt+Pd+Au, 0.2 per cent copper and 0.3 per cent nickel) in January 2015.

Hole RHD009, which was drilled to test a modest gravity anomaly immediately north west of the main Red Hill intrusion, intersected the lower contact of the ultramafic unit at 88.5m down hole.

Drilling showed a thick interval of disseminated and vein-hosted zinc and lead mineralisation occurs mostly within the metasedimentary rocks and returned assays of:

82.5m at 0.3 per cent zinc, 0.2 per cent lead and 1.5g/t silver from 91m down hole; including 0.8m at 4.1 per cent zinc, 4.6 per cent lead and 18.6g/t silver from 132m; and

2.9m at 2.8 per cent zinc, 0.4 per cent lead and 3.7g/t silver from 141m.

According to Impact, this footwall sequence of rocks are part of a regional package of rocks colloquially called the ‘Broken Hill Sequence’, which it said are similar to the host rocks at the zinc-lead-silver Broken Hill mine.

The company considers the sequence to be prospective for similar mineralisation and two of these sequences have been mapped at surface at Red Hill.

“The position of these rocks in Hole RHD009 was unexpected and is likely to reflect unrecognised folds at depth,” Impact Minerals said.

“Drilling is in progress to test Target T2, an EM conductor interpreted to be down dip of mineralised Broken Hill sequence rocks at surface.

“The prospectivity of the Red Hill area for zinc-lead-silver mineralisation will be assessed following completion of the current drill program.”

Email: info@impactminerals.com.au

Website: www.impactminerals.com.au

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Companies getting busy on the drill bit this week include, Minotaur Exploration, Mining Projects, and Sheffield Resources.

Drilling for Base Metals in the Gawler Ranges

Minotaur Exploration (ASX: MEP) has a 5,000 metre diamond drill program is underway on Minotaur tenements in the southwest Gawler Ranges mapping the hydrothermal and epithermal alteration and mineralisation systems.

The drilling is part of a collaborative research drill program with the South Australia Department of State Development and Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre and will utilise a range of new real-time data collection technologies.

Targets include basal volcanic structures, new EM conductors and magnetic and AMT anomalies below, within and marginal to the Gawler Range Volcanics where no previous drilling has been undertaken.

Drilling of 10 holes is expected to take approximately four months.

Minotaur Exploration is a partner with the Department of State Development (DSD) and Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre (DET CRC) in their Mineral Systems Drilling Program 2015 (MSDP).

The South Australian government, through the PACE Initiative, has committed $2 million to the MSDP directed entirely to the cost of drilling and testing new models and technologies.

The program aims to identify regional signatures of mineral systems utilising real-time data acquisition including Autosonde and Lab-at-Rig technologies.

Drilling will target the southwest margin of the Gawler Ranges Volcanic (GRV) province on Minotaur’s tenements EL4776 and EL5232, to ground truth new models of: 

epithermal gold and silver mineralisation within lowermost GRV units proximal to major faults; and
 
hydrothermal gold, silver, lead and zinc mineralisation proximal to the Hiltaba Suite granitic pluton.

New Nickel Targets Identified at Roe Hills

Mining Projects Group (ASX: MPJ) has identified several new high-priority bedrock electro-magnetic (EM) conductors at its 100 per cent-owned Roe Hills nickel project east of Kambalda in Western Australia.

The targets will be tested as part of a drilling program of up to 5000m of Reverse Circulation (RC) and diamond drilling which commenced at the Roe Hills project today.

The company is already drilling at the Talc Lake prospect before moving to test numerous other prospects, including the newly identified conductors at Roe 2.

Recent surface geophysical surveys (Moving Loop EM or MLEM) at the Roe 2 prospect have identified five new strong bedrock conductors located in what the company’s technical team considers to be favourable geological and structural positions.

All five targets will be prioritised for drill testing as part of the recently commenced drill program.

Drilling Nickel Target at Red Bull

Sheffield Resources (ASX: SFX) plans to drill-test a new, high-priority nickel-copper target at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Red Bull nickel project, located in the Fraser Range region of Western Australia.

The target at the Stud prospect comprises a bedrock conductor located beneath significant nickel-copper anomalism in shallow aircore drill holes, comprising a coherent anomaly of greater than 0.2 per cent maximum nickel-in-hole over a strike length of 1.8 kilometres.

A combination of diamond core and reverse circulation drilling is planned as an initial test of both the source of the bedrock conductor and IP centres along strike with coincident nickel-copper geochemical anomalism.

Drilling is scheduled to be completed by the end of Q4 2015, with results expected in Q1 2016.

“Although we outlined the Stud target several months ago, we have been focused on finalising PreFeasibility work on our flagship Thunderbird mineral sands project,” Sheffield Resources managing director Bruce McQuitty said.

“With the PFS successfully completed, we now have the opportunity to test this compelling target with a short, cost effective drill program.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) announced the return of high-grade gold results from a maiden resource definition drilling program undertaken at the company’s Ulysses gold project, located south of Leonora in Western Australia.

Genesis Minerals said the results had confirmed the high-grade nature and continuity of the resource base it has recently acquired.

The initial resource definition drilling of 23 holes targeted the western end of the Ulysses Resource.

The drilling delivered a number of high-grade gold results, including:

15USRC020
4 metres at 15 grams per tonne gold from 79m;

15USRC003
11m at 7.2g/t gold from 51m;

15USRC005
5m at 5g/t gold from 82m;

15USRC004
3m at 7.6g/t gold from 62m;

15USRC015
8m at 4g/t gold from 6m;

15USRC002
7m at 4.1g/t gold from 37m;

15USRC006
5m at 3.1g/t gold from 32m;

15USRC010
3m at 6.9g/t gold from 55m;

15USRC001
8m at 2.3g/t gold from 14m; and

15USRC016
8m at 2g/t gold from 11m;

“The high-grade results returned from the program to date strongly support our view that Ulysses will add significant value to the company in a relatively short period of time,” Genesis Minerals managing director Michael Fowler said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“There has been no active work on the project since 2004 and the initial results provide great encouragement that the historical data can be relied upon as a basis for the Feasibility work underway and on track for completion by the end of the year.

“With a number of gold plants located in close proximity to the project the company is very confident of being able to commercialise the Ulysses project in short order for very low capital cost.”

Genesis said the results to confirming the continuity of the near surface, high-grade mineralisation have provided the impetus to immediately complete further resource definition and extensional drilling.

The company’s next program set to recommence in early November, which it indicated will also test the extension of the resource along strike to the east and west and at depth.

Email: info@genesisminerals.com.au

Website: www.genesisminerals.com.au

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) emerged from a self-imposed trading exile to inform the market of developments on Exploration Licence E7390, part of the company’s Broken Hill project in New South Wales.

The company announced it had encountered an extremely high-grade intercept of platinum group metals, gold, copper, nickel and silver from Hole RHD012, high grade assays of the same metals from RHD008.

RHD012
Returned true width of 1.2 metres at:
10.4 grams per tonne platinum, 10.9g/t gold, 294g/t (9.5 ounces) palladium, 7.4 per cent nickel, 1.8 per cent copper and 19g/t silver

WITHIN a thicker zone of:
3.5m at 5g/t platinum, 6g/t gold, 144g/t (4.6 ounces) palladium, 2.9 per cent nickel, 2.3 per cent copper and 14.5g/t silver, and also including 0.5m at 5g/t platinum, 6.6g/t gold, 141g/t (4.6 ounces) palladium 1.3 per cent nickel, 10.4 per cent copper and 82g/t silver.

RHD008
Returned unknown true width of 29 metres at:
2.7g/t platinum, 0.5g/t gold, 5.5g/t palladium, 0.5 per cent nickel, 2.4 per cent copper and 57.8g/t silver.

Impact is set to acquire E7390 from Golden Cross Resources for $60,000 cash and a one per cent gross production royalty taking it to 100 per cent of the nickel-copper-PGE rights, previously in Joint Venture with Golden Cross.

Impact has the choice to opt for the right to buy back the royalty for $1.5 million cash at anytime up to a Decision to Mine, or, leave the royalty uncapped during production.

In addition Impact will assume Golden Cross’s JV rights for lead-zinc-silver-other metals with Silver City Minerals.

In conjuction with that deal Impact will move to an 80-20 joint venture with Silver City Minerals on the lead-zinc-silver-other metal rights for a payment of $50,000 cash and for Silver City’s 20 per cent interest to be free-carried to a Decision to Mine.

Impact explained the mineralised intercepts the drilling had discovered so far occur in a north-south trending corridor, sub-parallel to the general trend of the drill holes, which means it has yet to establish the optimal orientation for drilling.

As such the drill program has been placed on hold for about a week pending detailed studies to more fully understand the controls on the mineralisation.

In addition down hole EM surveys have identified a conductor within 15m of the mineralised intercept in RHD012 and an interpretation is in progress to accurately locate its position.

This will also be a drill target. The drill program will also test a strong EM conductor considered to be prospective for lead-zinc-silver mineralisation.

“The Red Hill project continues to deliver exceptional drill results and we have also now been able to greatly simplify the previous complex metal rights ownership that we inherited when acquiring this project only two and a half years ago,” Impact Minerals managing director Dr Mike Jones said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Also, considering that this is only the second prospect, together with Platinum Springs, in the entire 35 kilometre trend of the project to have been drilled to any significant degree and that both have delivered very high grade nickel-copper-PGE assays, is testament to the exploration potential of our project.

“The challenge now is to understand the controls on this mineralisation and look to extend the zone of interest along trend and at depth below 50 metres.

“We look forward to re-starting drilling as soon as possible.”

Email: info@impactminerals.com.au

Website: www.impactminerals.com.au