Auric exits June quarter with big gold exploration drive

Gold exploration is at the top of Auric Mining’s (ASX:AWJ) priority list after spending the June 2021 quarter putting all the pieces into place.

During the quarter, the company had completed the acquisition of Neometals’ (ASX:NMT) gold rights at Widgiemooltha and Spargoville, giving it a substantial exploration footprint in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region.

The Widgiemooltha gold tenements are of special interest as they surround Auric’s Munda gold project on three sides, adding to prospective coverage at the north end of the Widgiemooltha Dome and a number of prospective areas around the Widgiemooltha Dome.

While the Widgiemooltha Dome tenements are in a Tier 1 mining region historically recognised as nickel bearing, there has been limited exploration to test its gold potential, a shortcoming that the company is keen to address with a reverse circulation program that kicked off on 22 July.

“We are excited to resume RC drilling at the Munda gold project,” managing director Mark English said.

“We will follow-up excellent results received in the March quarter as well as commence drilling in the recently acquired Guest prospect.

“The acquisition of gold rights around the Widgiemooltha Dome provides a fantastic opportunity to expand our gold resources and accelerate our growth strategy.”

Munda drilling

The 28-hole drill program totalling 3,100m at Munda follows on initial drilling in March that returned very promising results such as 13m at 14.62 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of 60m that included a bonanza intercept of 1m at 137.4g/t from 65m.

Drilling will test potential extensions to the current deposit, particularly along the western margin of current resource definition and close spacing where appropriate for resource estimation.

Munda currently has a resource of 3.77 million tonnes grading 1.43g/t gold for 173,700oz of contained gold.

Auric will also twin four historical holes drilled by Western Mining Corporation as part of an ongoing validation program.

Additionally, the program will test for a new mineralised zone associated with an intercept of 19m at 0.72g/t gold from 26m about 200m northeast of the current resource.

Over at the Guest prospect, the company is planning to drill nine holes totalling 830m with the goal of hitting better intersections than from earlier drilling.

Guest – one of the tenements acquired from Neometals – is on a structural trend that links it with the Munda project about 1km and 2.3km to the northwest.

It is associated with a number of historical shafts of unknown age and has been subjected to two separate shallow percussion drilling programs in 1984 and 2006.

Widgiemooltha exploration and other activity

Auric has also designed aircore drilling programs to test a number of areas within the newly acquired gold-rights tenements in the Widgiemooltha gold project.

A total of 20 traverses for about 6,000m of drilling will be complemented where appropriate by soil sampling programs.

Meanwhile, a small sampling and testwork program has been designed to further constrain design parameters for potential treatment of Jeffreys Find gold mineralisation.

The company plans to take samples for this program via RC drilling during September.

This article was developed in collaboration with Auric Mining, 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.