Deep drilling has proved that there is potential to further grow gold resources at Magnetics LJN4 deposit. Pic via Getty Images.
Mining
Special Report: Magnetic Resources may have just enjoyed an upgrade to gold resources at its Laverton project in WA, but new drilling has proven there’s plenty of room for growth after returning a 550m depth extension at Lady Julie North 4.
In November 2023, the company upgraded resources at its 179km2 project in the heart of WA’s Laverton district by 107% to 22.7Mt grading 1.69g/t gold, or 1.24Moz of contained gold.
The resource update includes the Hawks Nest 9 (HN9), Lady Julie Central (LJC), Lady Julie North 4 (LJN4), Mount Jumbo and Homeward Bound South deposits with LJN4 – the focus of Magnetic Resources’ (ASX:MAU) efforts – seeing a 317% increase to 852,000oz of gold.
This is hugely positive as LJN4 hosts the kind of strong, thick breccia zones that are prevalent in Anglo Ashanti’s world class Sunrise Dam deposit, which has both parallel to near-surface shear zones and vertical mineralisation going downwards into several of their individual deposits.
Highlighting the company’s confidence in the new LJN4 resource, it applied for a mining lease application over the deposit in December as the first stage in the mining approvals process.
It also led MAU to drill at depth below the resource.
This deeper drilling has now paid off with hole MLDD033 returning a 16m intersection grading 4.51g/t gold from a down-hole depth of 411m, which represents a large 200m step-out below the current resource.
MAU believes this intersection is potentially underground mineable and is still open downdip, adding that downdip mineralisation is interpreted to have a continuity of 550m downdip, the biggest extension of its kind identified to date at the deposit.
It expects mineralisation to continue at depth within the Chatterbox shear, which is a regional scale structure that controls many deposits along its length including LJN4, Apollo, Beasley Creek and Wallaby. Shallow seismic completed showed that the Chatterbox shear is 1.5km in length.
Adding further interest, the hole also discovered new hanging wall mineralisation, returning intersections of 2m @ 15.32g/t gold from 247m, 8.7m @ 2.43g/t gold from 107m and 13m at 1g/t gold from 135m.
These hanging wall intersections are associated with a breccia zone and are planned to be followed up with RC drilling.
Meanwhile, MLJRCD826 – a large step-out that is outside the current resource – intersected a 40m thick breccia zone from 270m that looks very promising visually and has assays pending.
This is still open down dip and to the south and RC holes are being planned to follow up this promising thick breccia zone.
Hole MLJRCD802 returned the best intersection to date of 133m @ 2.87g/t gold from 173m including 61m @ 4.68g/t gold from 243m.
“We see up to three stacked zones within the centre and the southern end of LJN4 and our new drilling completed within the central part of the 800m long LJN4 deposit has been infill drilled and extended down dip with some outstanding results,” Managing Director George Sakalidis said.
He added that the indicated mineralisation continuity of 550m down dip in MLJDD033 is MAU’s largest down dip extension to date while the 40m thick breccia zone in MLJRCD826 enlarges the scope of this area as it is open to the east and to the south.
“This central 250m long zone is very promising due to the excellent grades and thicknesses found here and the strong correlation with breccia and silica-pyrite zones, which are also prevalent in the world class Sunrise Dam deposit,” Sakalidis noted.
“This is an exciting time for the company having announced its expanded mineral resource on 23 November 2023 and now looking to further increase the size the LJN4 Resource by recent drill testing the thickened high-grade breccia zone and continuation at depth and to the east and NE within the new structural target.
“Concurrently, the Blue Cap studies are near completion, which provides the company with the ability to fast-track work approvals and publish the economics of the deposits.”
This article was developed in collaboration with Magnetic Resources, 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.
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