Gateway Mining has intersected a large zone of shallow oxide gold mineralisation in air-core drilling at the Julias target – within its Gidgee gold project in the Murchison region of WA.  

The Julias target is within a 5km radius of the 240,000-ounce inferred Montague-Whistler gold deposits and immediately north of the previously defined gold mineralisation at Flametree.

New results at Julia include:

  • 13m at 4.0g/t;
  • 3m at 7.2g/t;
  • 14m at 1.1g/t;
  • 7m at 1.6g/t and 1m at 8.6g/t; and
  • 24m at 1.4g/t.

Managing director Mark Cossom said the results supported Gateway Mining’s (ASX:GML) strategy of exploring within this radius in the Gidgee project area.

“Gidgee is quite a big project – it’s 1000 sq km so our strategy is to target and develop these gold deposits within a 5km radius of our existing resource base,” he said.

“We actually drilled at Julias in 2008 and when we went back to look at it, we realised there was potential to build on work already done.

“We’re seeing a strong correlation between these results and previous drilling in this area.”

Building a solid pipeline of targets

Cossom said the company is targeting deposits around the existing resources with the aim to build up the resource base that could potentially become a viable gold operation.

“These outstanding results from air-core drilling have opened up the Julias-Flametree trend as a new priority focus for our exploration team,” he said.

“Achieving broad zones of oxide mineralisation grading up to 8.6g/t is a fantastic result for air-core drilling.

“We are committed to building a strong pipeline of exploration targets within 5km of our existing resources at Gidgee and this new area joins other exciting targets to be systematically evaluated over the next 12 months.

“We have plenty of targets within this radius and plenty to do to work in the short to medium term – but it pretty clear that all these deposits are going to be complementary and work together to take the project forward.”

GML
Pic: Julias air-core drilling hole location.

Mineral resource update for Montague-Boulder

The company is currently working towards a mineral resource update at Montague-Boulder (120,000 ounces gold) to include the Evermore deposit to the north.

“We’re currently putting a new resource statement together – updating the Montague-Boulder mineral resource and completing a maiden resource estimate for Evermore,” Cossom said.

“And we’re working on a maiden resource estimate for another discovery we made earlier in 2020, at a place called Achilles North.

“We expect to finalise those mineral resource estimates during this current December quarter.”

Cossom said the company sees a significant opportunity in the Murchison region as it hasn’t been explored very heavily in the last 20 years. 

We have a unique opportunity and Julias is a great example where we’re exploring for near surface, shallow oxide deposits, which in many parts of WA have already been found and mined and everyone’s moved on,” he said.

“There’s a lot of potential there for Gateway to grow its resources in a systematic way by targeting these shallow, near surface deposits.”

Follow up drilling at Julias-Flametree target

Gateway interprets that Julias extends south into the neighbouring Flametree target zone and plans to systematically drill test the entire 2km.

Cossom said the company is confident that the southern and northern strike extents to mineralisation are also still open, with AC drilling planned in February 2022.

“We’ll be back to follow up the Julias results with the RC rig at some stage,” he said.

“We’re also expecting results in November from RC drilling at the northern end of Achilles and in December we’re planning to RC drill a new target called Kashmir.

“Then we’ve got the resource update pending – so there’s plenty to keep us busy in the near-term.”

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Gateway Mining Limited, 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.