Gold: Artemis is proving conglomerate gold is the Spice Girls of the Pilbara

Much like the Spice Girls are trying to revive their career (which isn’t going so well, let’s be honest), the Pilbara gold nugget phenomenon is doing its best to make a comeback.

Fans of the English pop group are reportedly demanding their money back because of sound issues at the second show of their reunion tour in Cardiff on Monday night.

https://twitter.com/only_rhi/status/1133104823988084737

Let’s hope conglomerate gold fans are a little bit happier with Artemis Resources’ (ASX:ARV) progress.

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Artemis and Canadian partner Novo Resources are getting closer to being able to potentially determine the grade of the tricky conglomerate gold in the Pilbara.

Conglomerate-hosted gold became all the rage after the pair uncovered what was described as “watermelon seed nuggets” south of Karratha in July 2017.

Analysis of the nuggety gold later determined it was conglomerate-hosted. But it proved difficult to drill and explorers had to instead resort to bulk sampling.

Conglomerate gold refers to nuggets hosted in rock containing rounded grey quartz pebbles and other minerals. The world’s most productive gold region, South Africa’s Witwatersrand Basin, is famous for its similar geological formation.

Artemis and Novo have now completed a mineralisation report for their Purdy’s Reward project that they plan to submit to Western Australian regulators to win approvals to bulk sample 100,000 tonnes.

Novo is also trialling ore-sorting to assist with grade estimation at its Beatons Creek and Egina projects.

Once that system is operational, it will be also used at the Purdy’s Reward and Comet Well projects.

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“Novo is utilising advances in computer processing and mechanical ore-sorting technology to allow the concentration and estimation of grade from sufficiently large volumes, to then generate resources and economic models,” Artemis executive director Ed Mead told investors today.

“This process derives from the traditional sampling, grade estimation and geostatistical principles, just on a significantly larger scale.”

Once all government approvals are received, and the mechanical ore-sorter is operational, large sampling can initially be undertaken at two proposed locations at Purdy’s Reward.

The news sparked a bit of interest among investors, with the share price advancing 5.4 per cent to 3.9c on Wednesday morning.

In other ASX gold news today:

Eastern Goldfields (ASX:EGS), soon to be known as Ora Banda Mining, has this time been successful in completing a $30m recapitalisation deal and getting itself out of administration. With a deed of company arrangement now in effect and the company handed over to its new directors, Eastern Goldfields will now turn to shareholders for approval on the recapitalisation and the name change.

Beacon Minerals (ASX:BCN) says it is on target to begin commissioning the processing plant at its Jaurdi gold project in June. The company is also planning to undertake extensive exploration to increase the size of the resource.

Dateline Resources (ASX:DTR) will start an 8,000m, 41-hole drilling program at its Gold Links project in Colorado in June. The program will test near-surface extensions of the Sacramento and 2150 veins located in the northern section of the project.

Southern Gold (ASX:SAU) thinks it has uncovered a major epithermal gold target at its Beopseongpo project in South Korea. Recent field work identified five major vein zones with a combined strike extent of 2.6km and widths in excess of 20m.

Mako Gold (ASX:MKG) has restarted a 3,600m drilling program at its Napie Project in Côte d’lvoire. Drilling is being undertaken to extend the 500m-long strike of gold mineralisation at the Tchaga prospect, and test mineralisation within high-priority targets between the Tchaga and Gogbala prospects.

Nexus Minerals (ASX:NXM) is now working on a resource estimate for its Crusader prospect after hitting high grades of gold up to 30.33 grams per tonne. “The first drill program at Crusader intersected significant mineralisation along the initial 600m strike length tested,” managing director Andy Tudor said. The initial resource is due out in June.