Pajingo by jingo
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Conquest Mining continues to produce good news from ongoing exploration at its Pajingo gold mine in north Queensland.
Recent drilling carried out by the company at the Moonlight prospect and the Starlight corridor has intersected gold mineralisation that has improved its geological understanding and exploration potential at these areas.
“The Moonlight prospect is approximately two kilometres from the current Pajingo workings and opens up an exciting new and prospective area for exploration,” Conquest Mining executive chairman Jake Klein said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The results from the Starlight corridor have unlocked an important new host to mineralisation at Pajingo and could potentially lead to further discoveries.”
The Moonlight prospect is located approximately two kilometres from the current underground workings at Pajingo.
It consists of a series of gold-bearing quartz veins and breccias that have a northwest-southeast orientation and run parallel to the Vera-Nancy line of lode.
The first drill hole from the current program returned:
– 115.5 metres at 1.48 grams per tonne gold from 370 metres, including 33 metres at 3.29 grams per tonne gold from 430 metres and 4 metres at 19.46 grams per tonne gold Au from 457 metres.
This hole was drilled along strike to the southeast of holes that had been drilled by previous operators, which also intersected high-grade zones of gold mineralisation within a broad zone of low-grade mineralisation.
Conquest said it had now defined the strike length of the Moonlight prospect over about 190 metres and that it remains open to the northwest, southeast and down dip.
“The quartz veining at Moonlight appears to occur in two discrete orientations; one is broadly parallel to bedding and the other dips steeply to the northeast,” Conquest said.
“The steep veins are interpreted as the feeder veins to the flatter veining which tends to be better developed below a sinter horizon and this is reflected in a more consistent grade.
“The feeder veins have returned the high-grade intercepts.”
Recent drilling carried out on the Starlight corridor has targeted historic higher grade intercepts while focusing on areas where previous drilling did not extend deeper than 100m below surface.
Recent drilling has intersected mineralisation at both the Starlight B and Mt Starlight prospects including:
– 3.0m at 6.37g/t gold from 351m at Starlight B, including 1m at 11.60g/t gold from 351m; and
– 2.0m at 7.49g/t gold from 346m at Mt Starlight, including 0.4m at 21.80g/t gold from 365.5m.