Pic: Tyler Stableford / Stone via Getty Images
91.7g/t gold hit puts more polish on Great Southern’s Southern Star
Mining
share
Great Southern’s Southern Star prospect continues to shine with drilling returning high-grade gold hits outside of the previously known extant of near-surface mineralisation.
The second round of results from its maiden reverse circulation drill program features standout hits such as 1m grading 91.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold within a broader 7m interval at 13.9g/t gold from 123m and 27m at 1.5g/t gold from 77m including 6m at 5g/t gold.
Great Southern Mining (ASX:GSN) also reported new near-surface assays from the first 12 holes such as 36m at 1.1g/t gold including 4m at 3.3g/t gold and 4m at 6.1g/t gold that are outside-of and in addition to previously reported intercepts that topped out at 59m at 2.1g/t gold.
Chief executive officer Sean Gregory said the second round results include the highest-grade individual assays encountered to date at Southern Star within its Duketon gold project near Laverton, Western Australia.
“The results clearly demonstrate the significance and potential of the deposit given the noted similarities to the much larger million-ounce open pit and underground gold mine at Rosemount and to the Ben Hur Deposit, both along strike on the same regional mineralised structure,” he added.
“The presence of these high-grade intersections at depth and outside of known zones of thick near-surface gold mineralisation give us the imperative to immediately follow up with more drilling.”
The company believes the Southern Star deposit is analogous to both the Ben Hur deposit and the Rosemont (>1Moz) open pit and underground gold mine, situated 4 and 24 kilometres northwest along strike respectively.
Ben Hur has been the focus of Regis Resources’ recent drilling efforts culminating in a Mineral Resource estimate 390,000oz at 1.2 g/t gold.
First pass drilling of regional exploration targets at One Weight Wonder, Ogilvie’s, Erlistoun Queen, and Golden Boulder has just been completed and assays are pending.
Drill results and next steps
Gold mineralisation at Southern Star is hosted in a steeply east-dipping quartz-dolerite unit that is about 80m wide.
Drilling targets the footwall of the unit as that is where the primary lode is persistent and of high-grade. This high-grade mineralisation has been traced for over 500m of strike and remains open in all directions.
Great Southern adds that the top hit from the second round of results is of particular interest as it was intersected in an area that was previously poorly drilled at depth.
This is a strong indication that further deep drilling is needed to understand mineralisation at depth.
With regional drilling completed, the company has returned the RC rig to Southern Star for further drilling to test for strike extensions at Southern Star and also increase the drill density in the centre of the deposit which has seen sparse drilling to date
Non-core tenements
Separately, Great Southern has returned the Cox’s Find tenements to vendor, relieving it of the obligation to pay a deferred payment of $800,000 in return for paying a cancellation fee of $100,000.
The company says this is in line with its mission to “create value through discoveries”, which includes divesting assets that do not warrant immediate allocation of exploration capital.
Consistent with this strategy, it has also disposed the non-core Mt Weld tenements and sold the mining information to a third part for $50,000 in cash.
Funds released from the divestments will be redeployed to accelerate exploration efforts at other projects.
This article was developed in collaboration with Great Southern Mining, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
Explore More
Read MoreGold
