Astro Resources (ASX:ARO) hopes to find bulk scale gold-silver deposits when it drills an ancient volcano in Nevada.

To supplement its more advanced minerals sands projects in WA, Astro Resources has a Nevada gold project called Needles which it acquired back in October 2017.

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It is located in an area rich with epithermal gold-silver deposits and large-scale mining history that goes back to 1900.

A survey had identified a large 2km by 1.6km caldera at Needles “with an affinity to other local deposits”  like Bullfrog (+20moz) and Round Mountain (+25moz), Astro says.

Calderas – large, cauldron-like hollows formed by an ancient volcanoes – can host rich ore deposits.

Round Mountain has produced more than 373,000kg (more than 12moz) of gold and 311,000kg of silver since 1907, so this is nice comparison to make.

At Needles, recent follow up rock chip sampling and target generation field work identified a high priority target zone about 1.2km long and 600m wide within the main, 15km diameter caldera.

Now, after a few delays, Astro is finally going to drill the thing.

This maiden drilling program is scheduled to begin shortly, and consists of 11 RC holes to a maximum depth of 250m, the company says. Results will start coming through in August.

 

In other ASX gold news today:

Carawine Resources (ASX:CWX) believes multiple near surface deposits may be linked to a single deep mineralisation source at its Jamieson project. Carawine has defined five new near-surface targets at Jamieson in northeast Victoria, all within 1km of flagship prospect Hill 500 where the explorer recently announced outstanding assay intervals including 101m @ 1.44g/t gold from 21m, including 12m at 4.32g/t gold.

Carawine managing director Mr David Boyd said a resource estimate at Hill 500 is due this year, followed by further drilling to test the depth extents where mineralisation is becoming wider, and higher grade.

“However, there is a bigger picture to be considered for Jamieson, and this latest work enables us to look beyond Hill 800 and identify opportunities to discover multiple near-surface deposits potentially linked to a single underlying mineralisation source,” he says. “We will advance these concepts as drilling recommences later this year.”

Drilling has identified two new significant zones of mineralisation – A5 and A7 North – at Indiana Resources’ (ASX:IDA) West Mali gold project. A5 returned a best results 2m @ 12.3g/t, 44m in from surface. At A7 North, significant intersections included 5m @ 2.34g/t from 37m. Indiana chair Bronwyn Barnes says these initial results are a “solid endorsement of the prospectivity of the West Mali Gold Project area”.

Predictive Discoveries (ASX:PDI) has uncovered new gold zones at its Boundiali project in Cote D’Ivoire. At Boundiali North, drilling results confirm the discovery of significant primary gold beneath two soil anomalies tested so far, with better intersections including 5m at 3.49g/t gold and 3m at 6.61g/t.

“The drilling and trenching programs at Boundiali have further enhanced the potential of both permits to host large tonnages of gold mineralisation with significant new gold mineralised zones outlined by these results,” says Predictive Discovery managing director Paul Roberts. “Following the wet season break, the Toro Joint Venture will continue to aggressively explore the 14km-long zone of gold-in-soil anomalies in Boundiali North, as well as the 6km-long Nyangboue gold geochemical anomaly, with further drilling and trenching programs expected.”

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