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Austin Metals powers through first drilling, defines gold at three new prospects
Mining
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The ASX gold explorer now holds a unique opportunity to target under cover for favourable host rock types for the very first time at the Shadow prospect area within the Austin Gold Project.
Results include an 800 x 200m gold zone at the new Everlong prospect, where hits of up to 6m at 1.2 g/t gold from 24m and 30m at 0.2g/t gold from 15m have been returned.
At the Generator prospect drilling interested 2m at 0.7g/t gold from 40m.
Austin Metals (ASX:AYT) says around 193 shallow aircore holes for 5,168m at the Shadow target area have now been completed during a major phase of air core drilling carried out in July 2021 and March 2022.
A real game changer
AYT technical director Leo Horn said the company has hit the ground running with a completely new exploration strategy, focusing on identifying structures in the new gravity data.
“Gold-bearing quartz veining at Everlong along with subtle gravity low breaks confirm the new targeting strategy is highly effective and will be also utilised in future drill programs,” he said.
“The discovery of ore-grade gold and significant widths of gold bearing quartz veins at the Everlong Prospect represents a game-changer for the Austin Project.
“Given the multitude of other gravity targets across the very large ground package we are extremely excited to launch into a larger campaign of aircore testing of many.”
This new gold mineralisation, which is hosted in mafic and ultramafic host rocks for the first time at the project, are similar to host rocks at Musgrave Minerals’ Break of Day and Lena group of deposits.
Mafic host rocks for gold deposits at Austin
“It is clear that mafic rocks are likely to be the favourable host rock for gold deposits across the Austin Project,” Horn added.
“Importantly, mafic rocks haven’t been the target host rock by previous explorers, who have specifically focused on the banded iron formations (BIF) units that generally outcrop as topographic highs throughout the district.
“It is also important to note that the gold-bearing veins intersected in drilling at Everlong are very likely to be the in-situ bedrock source of the extensive gold nuggets identified at surface by prospectors over a large area of 750m by 300m.”
Looking ahead
Assays are pending for the balance of aircore holes at Mt Sandy, Brunwick Hill and Brians and will be reported shortly.
This article was developed in collaboration with Austin 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.
