THE DRILL SERGEANT: Australian gold producer Tanami Gold has continued its run of exploration success at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Central Tanami project in the Northern Territory.

Recent highlights from ongoing infill and extension drilling at the Groundrush deposit has returned results including:

17.3 metres at 4.7 grams per tonne gold;

12.5 metres at 5.8g/t gold;

10.8 metres at 6.3g/t gold;

9.2 metres at 5.2g/t gold; and

7.7 metres at 8.5g/t gold;

“The continued exploration and drilling success at the Central Tanami project is very pleasing as it provides a high level of confidence in the project leading into the dry season which will see increasing drilling activity,” Tanami Gold deputy chairman Denis Waddell said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“We are particularly encouraged that positive results are being returned at both the Groundrush deposit and regionally, as highlighted in the ripcord Prospect results reported on 16 March 2012.”

Tanami has continued with drilling at the Groundrush deposit since drilling its initial hole was drilled in April 2011.

 

Groundrush schematic longsection. Source: Company announcement

 

To date, over 80 diamond drill holes have been drilled enabling the company to define a Resource of 535,000 ounces, which remains open in all directions.

Tanami’s technical team has recently carried out a complete re-log of the core drilled to date to enable detailed geological, alteration and mineralisation models to be developed.

This has been done in order to assist the company with ongoing exploration targeting as well as increasing its confidence in the current Resources.

Drilling is set to ramp up in coming months with additional rigs secured.

The current and planned drill programs include infill drilling and testing for depth and strike extensions to the current Resource.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Recent drilling conducted by Archer Exploration has confirmed the presence of an eastern graphite limb at the company’s Sugarloaf graphite deposit.

The Sugarloaf graphite deposit is located on Carappee Hill near Darke Peak on Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.

 

Drill section superimposed on EM signature. Source: Company announcement

 

Three RC holes were drilled on the eastern side of the Sugarloaf Hill to confirm the presence of an eastern graphite limb to the Sugarloaf anticline as indicated by historic holes drilled for gold and EM data and two historic shafts,” Archer Exploration said in its ASX announcement.

“Archer’s previous drilling had only concentrated on the western graphite limb.

“The drilling confirmed that the Sugarloaf graphite deposit occurs in a broad open anticline.

“All three holes intersected graphite schist.”

The best graphite intervals reported from the recently completed drilling include:

–    20 metres at 7.8 per cent carbon from 54 metres and 7 metres at 10.6 per cent carbon from 76 metres;

–    34m at 6.3 per cent carbon from 55m and 23m at 10.6 per cent carbon from 96m, including 7m at 16.0 per cent carbon.

–    25m at 6.4 per cent carbon from 42m and 22m at 5.2 per cent carbon from 82m.

That latest results have led to Archer increasing its exploration target at Sugarloaf from 24 to 37 million tonnes grading 10 to 12 per cent carbon to 40 to 70 million tonnes at 10 to 12 per cent carbon.

Before Archer acquired the Sugarloaf tenement it had been subjected to drilling which had recorded numerous intercepts of graphite.

However, graphite was not a focus of the owners at that time and the intervals were never assayed for carbon.

Archer reviewed the historical drill logs noting graphitic intervals while geological logs had recorded intervals of graphite varying from 4m to 61m.

Archer has achieved an amorphous graphite product of 82 per cent Total Graphitic Carbon from a composite sample from one of the recent drill holes using conventional flotation techniques and standard reagents.

The Total Graphitic Carbon content rose to 85 per cent using an acid digest.
The concentrate had 91 per cent Total Organic Elemental Carbon and the sample head grade was 10 per cent carbon.
 
Archer said upcoming work will focus on testing several other sections of the deposit in order for the company to get a better understanding of the average flotation performance across the deposit.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Focus Minerals has received preliminary results from a recent infill drilling program conducted at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Treasure Island gold project on Lake Cowan in Western Australia.

The company has received assay results for 105 infill holes so far, approximately 50 per cent of which have returned anomalous gold.

The company’s original regional reconnaissance program at Treasure Island resulted in only 2 to 3 per cent of the holes returning anomalous gold.

Focus said the latest results indicate the company is beginning to define the position of a mineralised system beneath the lake.

It has already identified two targets for preliminary diamond drill testing expected to start next week.

“The aircore program on the lake has been testing a potential thrust repeat of the Treasure Island stratigraphy,” Focus Minerals Treasure Island principal geologist Dean Goodwin said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“What we have been doing with the infill is to drill down to the base of oxidation through the lake sediment looking for gold as it spreads out away from the primary deposit in the bedrock below.

Cross section showing initial planned stratigraphy diamond drill hole. Source: Company announcement

“A hyper-saline environment like the lake is a perfect place to look for this supergene effect where over time the gold spreads out at the base of the water table creating a blanket.

“What we achieved in the regional reconnaissance aircore is to find where these blankets are, and now with the infill we are starting to pinpoint where we think the primary ore bodies might be.”

The Treasure Island gold project is located 35 kilometres south-south east along strike from the major St Ives gold mine of South African company Gold Fields in Kambalda, where over 15 million ounces of gold has been discovered over the last 22 years.
Goodwin said the detailed aeromagnetics show that the structural framework Focus is finding in the Treasure Island area looks similar to what is found at St Ives.

“There’s a lot of structural complexity evident on the eastern zone, and this level of complexity along with the favourable geology increases the chance of finding gold,” he said.

“One of the holes LCAC593 returned a 4 metre composite grading 1.07 grams per tonne gold (part of a 9m end of hole intersection grading 416 parts per billion), which is a significant amount of gold for an aircore program.

“This is a strong indicator that we are possibly close to the primary structure.”

Focus Minerals said a lot more data is required from the whole infill drilling program before it can make an assessment of the full potential of the area.

The company expects to receive remaining assays for the infill aircore program in the coming weeks.

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.