Anova has kicked off a 10,000m reverse circulation drill program at the highly prospective Golden Dragon gold project that it is in the process of acquiring.

Not only is the drilling the first major exploration program for primary gold at the project in Western Australia’s Murchison region, it is also being funded by current owner DC Mines as part of the conditions precedent to its agreed acquisition by the company.

Anova Metals (ASX:AWV) signed the binding agreement to acquire DC Mines and its previously producing Golden Dragon and Fields Find projects, with the former having existing resources of 945,000oz of gold including 461,000oz in the high confidence Measured and Indicated categories, in late November 2022.

This initial drill program seeks to delineate along strike and at depth extensions of the Windinne Well, Mugs Luck and Austin deposits to grow resources.

Mineralisation control factors, particularly for the high-grade lodes in fresh rock zones, will also be interrogated and provide guidance for drillhole design across the two further drilling programs totalling more than 30,000m that Anova plans to carry out in 2023.

Gold drilling

Drilling is currently underway at Windinne Well, which occurs along the underexplored western side of the Yalgoo greenstone belt with mineralisation hosted by a banded iron formation (BIF) unit.

Some 4,500m of drilling will be carried to test for depth extensions of existing mineralisation at both Windinne Well North and South with the deepest hole below the existing pit, which returned an intercept of 5.26m at 5.07 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 270m from surface, highlighting the potential prize.

Shallow mineralisation has also been discovered at Windinne Well North with hits such as 11m at 2.63g/t gold from 84m that ended in mineralisation, 6m at 4.25g/t gold from 82m and 26m at 1.34g/t gold from 62m.

The existing resource at Windinne Well corresponds well with an induced polarisation chargeability anomaly with its northern extension into the Windinne Well North prospect set to be tested by current drilling while the clear extension to the east will be tested by a subsequent program for a potential repeat parallel ore body.

About 3,500m of drilling will also be carried out to test the Mugs Luck deposit for the extension of mineralisation at depth and for new repeat, parallel deposits.

Historical drilling has been shallow at less than 150m in depth.

The final deposit to be tested is Austin, which features an existing shallow open pit with a depth of less than 20m and where limited fresh rock drilling in 2018 returned encouraging results such as 16m at 3.74g/t gold from 128m.

Geology logging for fresh rock mineralisation showed strong sulphide mineralisation, which is consistent with chargeability anomalies identified in an IP survey carried out over the area.

Anova and DC Mines plan to carry out 2,500m of drilling here to test the anomalies and the gold mineralisation in the fresh rock zone.

Acquisition bringing shine (and scale)

Besides boosting its gold resources up to 1.95Moz, the acquisition of DC Mines for $7m will also increase Anova’s landholding – including the existing Warriedar project – in the Murchison region up to a sizeable 804km2.

Both fields – located in close proximity to Silver Lake Resources’ (ASX:SLR) ultra-high grade Rothsay mine – had produced 350,000oz from shallow oxide gold deposits, including 175,000oz under the operation of Minjar Gold between 2013 and 2019.

It will also be accompanied by a change in name to Warriedar Resources to reflect the significant change in scale and the allure presented by the still underexplored Golden Dragon and Fields Find projects.

This will be accompanied by a 10:1 share consolidation subject to shareholder approval.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Anova Metals, 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.

Read MoreGoldGold NewsGold Stocks

Featured Companies

You might be interested in