Accelerate drilling uncovers open pit gold potential at Comet

Special Report: Accelerate Resources (ASX:AX8) is off to a flying start at its Comet project in Western Australia’s Cue district with drilling returning significant gold results.

This celestial discovery is blazing all the brighter given that assays such as 9m at 3.89 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 34m at the Comet East Trend have highlighted the potential to define shallow resources amenable to open pit mining.

These follow-up on historical results such as 4m at 7.08g/t gold from 27m and 3m at 4.53g/t gold from 60m.

Managing director Yaxi Zhan says the company is delighted to have returned significant results from its maiden reverse circulation (RC) drilling results at Comet.

“The Cue region has seen renewed interest following the recent high-grade gold discoveries made by Musgrave Minerals at the Starlight Prospect to the south-west of our project, and we see great potential for further discoveries in this exciting part of the goldfields,” she added.

“Accordingly, we have increased our strategic ground position around Comet and are very pleased to have been able to engage Kevin Joyce as our exploration manager to drive our exploration campaigns and development for this area.” Mr Joyce is a geologist with over 25 years’ experience in successful mineral exploration and development, particularly gold, in Australia and abroad

Follow-up drilling will focus on down dip and along strike extensions to the Comet East Trend as well as new targets.

Open pit gold potential

Comet East is about 1km east of the Comet Mine Trend, the host structure for Westgold Resources’ (ASX:WGX) Comet Mine.

Accelerate drilled five shallow RC holes at Comet East to validate and step out from the historical wide-spaced drilling.

The company noted the gold mineralisation occurs in quartz veined iron-rich sedimentary rocks near the contact with mafic lithologies, a setting that is analogous to other economic deposits found elsewhere in the Cue district.

Equally importantly, the setting and tenor of mineralisation at Comet East indicates that there is potential to define gold resources that may be amenable to open pit mining.

The gold zone may also represent an underexplored structural trend parallel to the adjacent Comet Trend.

Planning is now underway for drilling to further investigate the immediate prospect area and expand drill coverage to the north and south along the Comet East Trend.

Separately, 12 RC holes drilled on the northern portion of the Antarctica mineralised trend have delineated iron formation-hosted gold mineralisation over about 350 of strike.

This indicates that the gold-bearing zone at Antarctica extends a further 1.3km south of the current drill area and is open along strike.

The latest results will be reviewed and selected resampling undertaken prior to planning the next phase of step-out drilling along strike at the prospect.

accelerate resources comet gold project — Comet Gold Project with expanded project area. Pic: Supplied

Accelerate has also acquired Volcanic Resource, a company holding a 100 per cent interest in a tenement application that is contiguous with the northwest portion of the Comet project.

The company will issue the vendors 250,000 AX8 shares as the initial consideration for the acquisition and will issue a further 500,000 AX8 shares upon grant of the tenement.

This acquisition adds to Accelerate applying for two further tenements in the area.

This article was developed in collaboration with Accelerate 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.