Kairos Minerals Claims New Conglomerate-Style Gold Discovery
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Kairos Minerals (ASX: KAI) kicked off its 2019 exploration field season at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Pilbara gold project in Western Australia by claiming the discovery of an extensive area of conglomerate-hosted gold nuggets and visible gold.
Kairos Minerals made the discovery during ground-based exploration activities at the Croydon project, located within the central part of the Pilbara project, situated around 100 kilometres to the west of the Mt York gold project.
Kairos said the new discovery was a major advance in its conglomerate exploration program and was the first time the company has encountered intact gold nuggets hosted directly in a conglomerate unit and is considered to be directly analogous to the Purdy’s Reward discovery near Karratha, which first sparked interest in conglomerate-hosted gold in the Pilbara.
To date, Kairos has recovered a total of 223 nuggets for 656 grams/21.1 ounces at the base of the conglomerate outcrop near the contact with the granitic rocks of the Archean basement.
The company said its metal detector is also indicating that there is gold in five different locations in-situ.
A more detailed mapping program is now underway to define the mineralised horizon within the conglomerate unit.
“Our 2019 exploration field season in the Pilbara is off to a great start with our field team achieving a significant early breakthrough with the discovery of a large area of visible gold and nuggets hosted in conglomerate sequence,” Kairos Minerals executive chairman Terry Topping said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“This is the first time that we have found intact gold nuggets hosted directly in rock on our tenements – a really exciting development.
“The gold-bearing conglomerate horizon is located in a valley which lies just two kilometres from the six nugget patches discovered last field season and extends over a strike length of approximately 700 metres and width 200 metres.
“The conglomerate horizon occurs at surface and is therefore easily accessible from the perspective of metal detecting and potential future sampling and trial mining.
“Importantly, the gold-bearing conglomerate appears to be directly analogous to the extensive gold-bearing horizon reported previously by Novo Resources Corp at its Purdy’s Reward project near Karratha – demonstrating just how widespread this style of gold mineralisation is in the Pilbara.
“Together with the results of previous stream sediment sampling and the extensive program of soil sampling currently underway, this has added significantly to our understanding of the scale of the exploration opportunity at the Croydon project.
“We have so far identified multiple high-priority gold targets over 22 kilometres of strike, established access tracks to facilitate 4WD-assisted exploration and now discovered our seventh significant nugget patch – this time with gold hosted directly in the conglomerate sequence.
“Field exploration activities are continuing with sampling, mapping and metal detecting, and we are looking forward to reporting further results as they come to hand.”
Website: www.kairosminerals.com.au