Lodestar hits more gold at Contessa prospect
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Lodestar Minerals (ASX: LSR) has encountered further gold intercepts in aircore drilling recently completed at the Contessa prospect on the company’s Neds Creek tenements, located 170 kilometres north of Meekatharra in Western Australia.
Recent drilling targeted extensions to gold intercepts previously reported by the company and include:
– 5 metres at 6.6 grams per tonne gold from 55 metres;
– 10m at 5.6g/t gold from 55m;
– 10m at 1.2g/t gold from 50m; and
– 15m at 3.1g/t gold from 40m.
The results were in 5 metre composite samples from first pass drilling at Contessa.
Location plan showing gold prospects (red dots) on E52/2456. Source: Company announcement
“The gold mineralisation intersected at Contessa represents a significant new gold discovery,” Lodestar Minerals managing director Bill Clayton said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“We are very encouraged by the tenor and extent of these early drill results and we are optimistic that further exploration may lead to additional success.”
Lodestar explained that three holes undertaken on Section 69700N intersected mineralisation covering 75m.
The company said this area represents an excellent target, as it considers it to have potential for a significant bedrock discovery beneath oxide mineralisation.
It is also adjacent to a section where mineralisation may project closer to the surface.
The Contessa gold system extends beyond the central sections, and based on geochemical anomalism in end‐of‐hole samples, continues outside of the drilled area.
Previous scout drilling by Lodestar encountered gold anomalism 1.6 kilometres to the grid south.
Lodestar believes it is likely this mineralisation is an extension of the Contessa system that has not been tested methodically by drilling.
The Brumby mineralisation 4.5 kilometres to the west of Contessa, where the granite contact position remains open, is also interpreted as being part of the Contessa gold mineralising system.
Ten kilometres of greenstone stratigraphy on Lodestar’s ground has had practically no historic exploration for gold, which the company considers represents a previously unrecognised extension of the Baumgarten Greenstone Belt, which hosts historic gold occurrences to the east of Lodestar’s tenements.
Lodestar’s recent exploration has doubled the extent of this greenstone belt.
Lodestar claims the drilling at Contessa has confirmed its gold potential.