THE DRILL SERGEANT: Excelsior Gold has received assay results from a drilling campaigned it completed in December 2011 which focused on resource areas in the central portion of the company’s 100 per cent-owned Kalgoorlie North project.

A conceptual mine scoping study centred on the Excelsior Deposit conducted in September 2011 indicated the potential for large open pit development of the deposit as well as opportunities to mine other satellite deposits in close proximity to Excelsior.

According to the company results from the latest drilling program at the Excelsior gold deposit have potential to expand the conceptual pit design and demonstrates the significance and scale of the project area.

 

Excelsior Plan showing Drill Results and Conceptual Pit and Waste Dump Design. Source: Company announcement

 

New results received from outside of the current conceptual design include:

13 metres at 1.85 grams per tonne gold from 156 metres;

18m at2.97g/t gold from 81m;

7m at 1.90g/t gold from 20m; and

5m at 4.25g/t gold from 101m.

The Excelsior deposit hosts resources of 405,300 ounces of gold (9.72 million tonnes at 1.3g/t gold at 0.6g/t cutoff).

Six other satellite deposits within a four kilometre radius of Excelsior contain an additional 196,000ozs of resources.

Excelsior Gold said it has initiated a pre-feasibility study on the Excelsior area designed to evaluate a multiple open pit mining operation utilising heap leach and toll treatment processing options.

The company anticipates initial results from this study will be available in the second half of calendar
2012.

“The new assay results are predominately below the conceptual pit design and there is significant potential to increase the depth and length of the conceptual pit at the Excelsior deposit with the inclusion of these significant intersections,” Excelsior Gold said in its ASX announcement.

“A new resource model incorporating these results is in preparation to facilitate new mine design studies which will enable the company to commence sterilisation drilling and infrastructure planning to advance the development of the Kalgoorlie North project.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Discovery Metals has reported an initial Mineral Resource estimate at the Selene deposit, located in north western Botswana.

The Resource calculation stems from the completion of 52 drill holes totalling 5,343 metres.

The Maiden Inferred Mineral Resource for the Selene deposit totals 16 million tonnes at 1.0 per cent copper and 15.9 grams per tonne silver, above a 0.6 per cent copper lower grade cutoff.

A number of higher grade zones of over one per cent copper were also identified within the Selene deposit.
 
“The Selene Mineral Resource estimate is another important step towards defining the ultimate scale of the Boseto copper project,” Discovery Metals managing director Brad Sampson said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange

“With recent drilling also returning encouraging results at the Zeta North East and the Mango prospects, the Selene Mineral Resource estimate confirms that substantial upside mineral resource potential continues within the Boseto Zone.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Monax Mining has identified, what it describes as, a significant new chargeability anomaly, which the company considers could represent a newly-discovered manganese horizon.

The identification was made at the company’s Polinga manganese prospect, which forms part of its Waddikee project, located on Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.

Waddikee project, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Background image regional aeromagnetic data. Source: Company announcement

The anomaly was detected while Monax was conducting an expanded Gradient Array Induced Polarisation (GAIP) survey.

This survey followed an original GAIP survey that was planned to include only the area at Polinga where previous drilling was undertaken by Monax.

This had uncovered a chargeability anomaly on the northern boundary of the survey.

Monax decided to expand the GAIP survey northwards to further define the data it had collected.

The expanded IP survey has defined two major bedrock chargeable features which Monax considers may represent manganese mineralisation, enhancing the potential of the area.

“The new anomaly defined to the north of the previous drilling at Polinga represents a genuine target for manganese, and the next phase of drilling will target this feature,” Monax Mining managing director Gary Ferris said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The correlation between the previous drilling and the new IP data provides encouragement that this newly defined anomaly could potentially represent a new manganese horizon.

“The previous IP survey at our Hodgins prospect successfully showed the high grade manganese intersected in the drilling undertaken in April 2011 correlated with the GAIP chargeability response, providing a level of confidence for the new anomaly at Polinga.”

Monax is planning drilling to commence in late February based on the results of the IP surveys, with separate drilling programs scheduled for Monax’s Hodgins, Jamieson Tank and Polinga prospects.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Kentor Gold is set to proceed with a program of exploration drilling at it suite of tenements at Gabanintha, located near Meekatharra in Western Australia.

The program follows a HeliTEM survey flown by the company in September last year.

 

Gabanintha HeliTEM targets ‐ southern tenements. Source: Company announcement

 

“The survey was undertaken to identify drilling targets in order to extend known gold-copper mineralisation at Gabanintha,” Kentor Gold said in its ASX announcement.

“Kentor Gold has already established gold resources at Gabanintha and at nearby Burnakura where the company is targeting the commencement of gold production during 20121.”

Kentor said the modelling of the targets will begin this month, which it expects will provide the company with estimates as to the size and orientation of the mineralisation in order to assist follow-up drilling.

The proposed drilling to be undertaken at Gabanintha forms a part of an overall 20,000 metre Reverse Circulation drilling program that Kentor will commence this month at its Burnakura gold project, located close by.

This regional exploration will be carried out in addition to other drilling the company has planned for 2012 designed to increase and upgrade the existing Inferred Resource at Gabanintha of 4.5 million tonnes at 1.4 grams per tonne gold at 0.5 grams per tonne cut-off for 203,000 ounces of gold.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Africa-focused Golden Rim Resources has commenced a program of reverse circulation (RC) drilling on its Sepola project located in Mali.

The Sepola project covers approximately 300 square kilometres in western Mali and lies approximately 40 kilometres southeast along strike from the Sadiola and Yatela gold mines, which are jointly owned by AngloGold Ashanti and IAMGOLD Corporation.

Also in the region, approximately 40km southeast, is the 12 million ounce Loulo gold deposit, which is owned by Randgold.

 

Gold-in-soil geochemistry image with rockchip and trench results
and planned drillholes at the Linnguekoto West prospect. Source:
Company announcement

 

The drilling program will comprise 4,000 metres and is to be the first undertaken at the Linnguekoto West prospect where Golden Rim discovered broad zones of stockwork vein gold mineralisation by way of recently conducted trenching.

Results from this work included:

–    16 metres at 3.2 grams per tonne gold, including 1 metre at 17 grams per tonne gold in Trench 2; and

–    32m at 2.2 g/t gold in Trench 6.
 
“The gold mineralisation in the trenches is associated with broad zones of stockwork and tension-gash quartz-limonite veins, which are hosted in highly altered (bleached) sandstone units,” Golden Rim Resources said in its ASX announcement.

Golden Rim said the new drilling will aim at delineating the extent of stockwork mineralisation in the vicinity of Trench 2 and Trench 6 and also define potential strike extensions.

A total of 27 holes are planned.

Golden Rim has previously reported an Inferred Resource totalling 3.3 million tonnes at 1.5 g/t gold for 162,000 ounces of gold from the Mogoyafara South prospect.

This resource remains open at depth and along strike.