Artemis Resources has begun drilling what is expected to be Australia’s deepest ever diamond drill hole in a bid to unlock the secrets of the Pilbara in Western Australia.

Artemis (ASX:ARV) is aiming for a depth of 3300m — which will cost about $1.4 million.

The deepest hole drilled so far was achieved by Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) in March when the gold miner hit a depth of 3217m at its Jundee operations near Wiluna.

Artemis is drilling the “super-deep hole” to test the many rock sequences in the Pilbara Basin from surface and deep into the basement’s geology.

Executive chairman David Lenigas said in February that it was time that “someone started looking for the source of a lot of mineralisation in the Western Pilbara that has fed the many surface deposits of cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, gold and [platinum group elements]”.

Artemis has been exploring for conglomerate gold, cobalt, copper and nickel across its 1400sqkm landholding in the Pilbara.

Artemis Resources (ASX:ARV) shares over the past year.
Artemis Resources (ASX:ARV) shares over the past year.

Conglomerate gold refers to nuggets hosted in rock containing rounded gray quartz pebbles and other minerals.

The world’s most productive gold region, South Africa’s Witwatersrand Basin, is famous for its similar geological formation.

The Pilbara is one of the most resource-rich areas in Australia and there has been very little exploration at depth.

The hole will be drilled 43km south of Artemis’ Radio Hill mine in the West Pilbara.

The Australian government’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is assisting Artemis.

The CSIRO will focus on characterising the drill core obtained from the deep hole through the Pilbara stratigraphy.

This will be one of the first major projects to utilise the CSIRO’s Drill Core Lab facility in Perth.

To help fund the hefty cost of drilling the hole, the WA government is contributing $200,000 and the federal government will chip in $50,000.

Stockhead is seeking comment from Artemis.

Marindi stresses: we do own the Pilbara nuggets

Meanwhile, also in the Pilbara – Marindi Metals (ASX:MZN) has had to confirm that it does in fact own the ‘hundreds’ of gold nuggets that were recovered from its Bellary Dome conglomerate gold project.

The company announced on Tuesday that 6.7 ounces of coarse gold “watermelon seed” nuggets were found at the project.

Marindi told investors this morning that the nuggets were purchased from the prospecting group who discovered them by a representative of the company who was on-site at the Bellary Dome project last Friday.

The company said previously they are just like the ones found by Artemis and Canadian partner Novo Resources at their projects in the Pilbara.

Marindi’s share price was up nearly 17 per cent this morning at 1.4c after it revealed it had found three new lithium targets along strike from Kidman Resources’ (ASX:KDR) Earl Grey lithium deposit.

Kidman is the first Australian lithium miner to strike a deal to supply lithium to American car giant Tesla.

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