Everyone likes a gold nugget story, and an image is even better. Two junior ASX-listed explorers have recently experienced what a picture can do for a share price.
Artemis Resources (ASX:ARV) saw its share price surge on the back of significant gold nugget finds at the Purdy’s Reward project in Western Australia.
Over the past couple of months, the gold explorer has made the market aware of significant recovery of gold nuggets at the project located south of Karratha in Western Australia.
Since July 13, when it made its first announcement of gold nugget recovery from first bulk sample at Purdy’s Reward, the company’s share price has jumped from 6c at market close on July 12 to 19c on August 2 — a whopping 217 per cent increase.
The news only got better for Artemis on Monday, with the company reporting the recovery of gold nuggets had ramped up at the project following detailed geological assessment of the top of newly discovered gold bearing conglomerates at the project.
In the four days prior to August 6, about 547.4 grams (17.6 ounces) of gold nuggets were recovered. The company has now discovered multiple gold nuggets over a 900m strike along the top of the outcropping conglomerates, with work continuing to extend the strike length.
“Recovery of gold nuggets has increased significantly on exposure of fresh and new surfaces that have not been metal detected to date by prospectors,” said Artemis’s head of exploration Ed Mead.
“The new areas are providing valuable information about the distribution of gold which will assist future exploration.”
Mead said the nuggets were flat and typically “watermelon-seed shaped” with the style of mineralisation like the Witwatersrand gold province of South Africa, where significant gold has been found in Archean sedimentary conglomerates.
The news comes after the Artemis announced the recovery of multiple small and large nuggets from its first test trench at Purdy’s Reward back in July this year. Earlier this month, Artemis announced a further recovery of 385 grams of gold nuggets over a 650m strike length.
Artemis is in a joint venture at Purdy’s Reward with Canadian-listed gold explorer Novo Resources Corp who is spending $2 million over a two-year period on exploration to gain a 50 per cent stake in the ground.
Shares in Artemis closed at 18c on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of about $58.6 million.
Meanwhile, Magnetic Resources (ASX:MAU) announced more than 25 ounces of large gold nuggets were recovered within the northeast part of the company’s Mertondale tenement in Eastern Goldfields, Western Australia.
What is of interest with the find is the size of the nuggets, with one measuring 5cm by 4cm and estimated to contain more than 10 ounces of gold.
“We are very impressed by the size of these nuggets which appear to have come from an underlying bedrock source near existing aeromagnetic targets in an emerging gold province,” said managing director George Sakalidis.
Mertondale lies in an emerging gold region where Kin Mining is defining a high-grade gold deposit at Cardinia (193,000 ounces).
The news sparked buying of the stock with its share price trading almost 20 per cent higher at 12.5c at 12pm on Tuesday before closing the day at 12c, up 14 per cent.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.