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.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Australian gold-copper resources company, Mutiny Gold has announced new high-grade gold intersections from the West Lode of its Deflector Gold deposit in Western Australia. By Mark Jones.


The results were received from Mutiny’s ongoing diamond drilling program at the Deflector deposit. The results will be incorporated into the revised resource estimation, which is expected to be released in the coming months.

Mutiny has almost completed a new 67-hole diamond drill program at its Deflector deposit

 Deflector gold-copper deposit. Source: Company announcement

The initial 12 holes were drilled to verify the general tenor of shallow historical drill-holes for which full data was unavailable.

These holes targeted both high and low grade areas of the West and Central Lodes; an initial examination of the results indicated that the holes have verified the tenor of the previous drilling.

Intersections include:

•    3.3 metres @ 79grams per tonne and 10.5 per cent copper from 62 metres
•    3m @ 3.4g/t gold and 0.2 per cent copper from 32m
•    3m @ 4.1g/t gold and 0.1 per cent copper from 11m

As with previous holes in the area, multiple intersections were achieved within some holes, as a number of parallel lodes are present at depth within the deposit.

“The continued discovery of high-grade gold and copper intersections at Deflector continued to increase confidence in the quality of the asset”, said Mutiny Gold’s managing director, John Greeve, in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

He added, “we look forward to releasing further results from the diamond drill program over the coming weeks.”

The company plans to commence mine development in the second half of 2012 leading to an open pit mining operation at the Deflector deposit, followed by underground mining after two years.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Gold exploration company Navarre Minerals has announced further results from a 25,000 metre RC drill program currently underway at the Tandarra prospect, part of the company’s Bendigo North project, located 40 kilometres north of Bendigo in Victoria.

The drilling has returned near surface intersections of gold mineralisation including:

–    17 metres at 1.0 grams per tonne gold t from 27 metres down hole, including 1 metre at 10.6 grams per tonne gold and 6 metres at 1.9 grams per tonne gold from 54 metres down hole;

–    19m at 1.1g/t from 60m down hole, including 1m at 7.5g/t;

–    18m at 1.0g/t from 53m down hole, including 9m at 1.8g/t from 53m down hole; and

–    9m at 1.0g/t from 27m down hole.

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

Navarre said it believes the broad zones of shallow gold mineralisation identified at the Tandarra prospect may offer potential for open pit bulk mining opportunities.

“We are very pleased to continue to encounter multiple broad zones of gold mineralisation from shallow depths,’ Navarre Minerals managing director Geoff McDermott said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
 
“The higher grade gold intersected appears to be erratically distributed and coarse in nature, which is within our expectations.

“These higher grades occur within a broad halo of mineralised quartz and we expect that as the drilling density is increased we should see further high grade intercepts.”

The current RC drill program has been designed to provide Navarre sufficient data to enable the estimation of a maiden mineral resource at Tandarra by the end of 2012.

So far, Navarre has drilled 47 air-core and 53 RC holes on the project targeting a ‘buried hill’ of approximately 35km square in area.

The company said this drilling has confirmed this buried hill to contain multiple mineralised quartz reefs concealed below a thin veneer of sedimentary cover ranging in thickness from 15 metres to 80 metres.

“The widths and assays that we seeing are consistent with our concept that an open pit allows the recovery of more reef material, increasing the potential to capture any nuggets which, due to their erratic distribution, can be difficult to target through drilling,” McDermott said.

“We are at an early stage of evaluation, but what I can say is that the reefs are near surface, they are well defined by geophysics, they repeat at depth and in parallel and they carry gold grade in the main target zones of the Macnaughtan and the Tomorrow Lines.”