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Mining
With the gold price at $3000/oz, ASX listed gold explorer Magnetic Resources is striking at the perfect time, rolling out an RC drilling blitz to capitalise on the bright outlook for both gold and its Lady Julie North deposit near Laverton.
Located in a gold field known for its abundance of long life, multi-million ounce deposits like the Wallaby, Granny Smith and Sunrise Dam gold mines, Magnetic Resources (ASX:MAU) has already identified 13.5Mt of gold-bearing ore at 1.4g/t gold for 605,000oz of the precious metal.
At Lade Julie North 4 it has 204,900oz at 1.93g/t, part of the overall Lady Julie resource of 5.89Mt at 1.68g/t for 317,900oz.
It remains open at depth and to the east of MAU’s thickest intersection to date of 96m at 1.23g/t gold from 54m, which includes 54m at 1.95g/t from 94m in hole MLJRC679.
There’s more where that came from, with other thick intersections being followed up to the east, including 18m at 4.98g/t from 89m in MLJRC687, 50m at 1.92g/t from 96m in MLJRC632, 15m at 1.31g/t from 173m in MLJRC669, 24m at 2.03g/t from 147m in MLJRC629 and 16m at 1.86g/t from 181m in MLJRC628.
Drilling is hardly finished at Lady Julie North 4, with five RC holes testing the 750m southern extension within the gold rich Chatterbox Shear.
They will aim to extend an intersection in wide space aircore drilling of 2m at 3.58g/t from 48m at the end of hole MLJAC191.
That will be followed up by a 23-hole RC programme totalling over 3000m of drilling to extend two stacked lodes found in the central and northern parts of Lady Julie North 4, a number outside the current JORC resource.
“With the Australian gold price at record levels of $3000 the Laverton Project Resources encompassing Lady Julie Central, Lady Julie North 4, HN9 and Homeward Bound South at Laverton, are shaping up and have potential for large-scale shallow open-cuttable deposits,” Magnetic MD George Sakalidis said.
“We see two stacked zones within the centre and the northern end of LJN4 and our new drilling planned will test for the deeper thickening and coalescence of these stacked zones at depth and a 750m zone directly south of LJN4.
“The multiple, thick intersections at Lady Julie North 4 are still open at depth with some thickening at depth in both the upper and lower stacked horizons and this is exciting with potential to again increase this resource at LJN4 with the new drilling planned.
“The Lady Julie North 4 (LJN4) gold mineralisation is still open at depth and to the east of the thickest intersection to date of 96m at 1.23g/t from 54m and includes 54m at 1.95g/t from 94m in MLJRC679.”
Major gold finds in the region like the Sunrise Dam, Wallaby and Jupiter deposits have internal shallow-dipping mineralised lodes often called shear or thrust zones.
At Wallaby they’ve been defined to 1500m deep, with most recent discoveries made at depths of 100m and below.
By contrast, drilling at Magnetic’s Hawk’s Nest 5, 6, 9 and Lady Julie has averaged just 73m in depth, opening the door to potential discoveries in deeper drilling.
“This is an exciting time for the company having announced its expanded mineral resource on 3 February 2023 and now looking to further increase the size (of) the LJN4 Resource by drill testing the upper and lower stacked zones,” Sakalidis said.
At the same time studies and a strategic review are ongoing.
“Completing the Blue Cap studies provides the company with the ability to fast-track work approvals and further assess the economics of the deposits,” Sakalidis said.
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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