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Gateway Mining chasing next generation of resource growth at Gidgee Gold Project
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Gateway Mining is zeroing in on its next generation of targets to build a pipeline of potential resources across its Gidgee Gold Project in WA’s rich Murchison gold field.
Gateway Mining (ASX:GML) has long shown the ability to focus on many fronts at once, and while it progresses efforts to expand and extend the 240,000oz bounty at its Whistler and Montague-Boulder deposits, a new wave of exploration is coming to outline resources and generate new prospects across the 300km2 expanse of the Gidgee project.
A major 22,000m aircore program across the new Plymouth, Achilles South and Julia target areas has been completed, with assays on the way.
Meanwhile, a massive program of works is set to keep Gateway’s drillers and geologist busy over the next six to nine months, including a 4000m reverse circulation program in September targeting extensions of the Evermore and Achilles North oxide targets.
The 2.5km long Kashmir target, which lies on the south-east margin of the major Montague Granodiorite, will be drilled with RC rigs in December.
A new 5.8km long soil anomaly has also been identified at Monarch to the east of the Montague Granodiorite, where soil sampling and drill target definition is going to take place over the coming months.
‘Multiple sizable deposits’ on the horizon at Gidgee
The incredible volume of exploration data and targets built up by Gateway over recent months provides an indication of the project’s potential to deliver multiple deposits, which managing director Mark Cossom believes “are capable of delivering significant further resource growth.”
“We have long believed that the Montague Granodiorite hosts a very large gold system with potential for multiple sizeable deposits,” he said.
“In addition to resource upgrades for the established resources at Whistler and Montague-Boulder, we are now working on maiden Mineral Resource Estimates for the new Evermore discovery and the Achilles North oxide prospect.”
That means Gateway will have upgraded JORC resources by year end at as many as four regional deposits.
“In the meantime, we have commenced work on the extensive pipeline of new-generation targets we have identified which we believe have the potential to drive our resources to the next level,” Cossom said.
“We have outlined some of these exciting targets in this announcement, including the highly-rated Kashmir prospect, the large oxide prospect at Flametree and the 5.8km long Monarch gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly.
“We are looking forward to advancing these targets to the next level, providing a clear pathway for long-term resource growth at Gidgee.”
Previous exploration only scratched the surface
Testing for the northern extensions at the high-grade Evermore and Achilles North oxide discoveries is a no-brainer given the exploration success Gateway has already seen at those prospects.
While some of the other targets Gateway is exploring have been looked over before, the old timers only scratched the surface, and no previous company or prospector has identified the scale of the opportunity to the same extent as Gateway.
The 5.8km long Monarch gold-in-soil anomaly has a series of historical underground workings, but was only ever tested by five RC holes to a depth of just 50m in 1985.
With the benefit of modern exploration methods, fine-fraction soil sampling over the past two years by Gateway has identified the major gold-in-soil anomaly at the mafic gabbro hosted target.
Rock chip samples collected by Gateway’s rock kickers in the field from in-situ veining returned a bonanza grade result of 18.7g/t, with in-fill soil sampling planned over the next week to elevate the prospect to drill ready target status.
Kashmir was defined via similar methods in 2019 with first pass drilling on a wide 1km spacing intersecting primary gold of 2m at 7.9g/t. The target lies directly along strike to the north from the unmined 200,000oz Howards resource at Horizon Gold’s Gum Creek gold project.
At Flametree reconnaissance aircore drilling in late-2019 intersected significant shallow oxide gold mineralisation outside the main Montague Granodiorite system. It is 800m long and believed to be part of a larger corridor that joins with the Julias prospect to the north, with wide-spaced drilling two years ago hitting shallow oxide mineralisation including 5m at 10.4g/t and 5m at 3.8g/t.
Further aircore drilling there will extend the strike and drill around previous results to assess the potential to delineate a near surface oxide gold deposit, with drilling scheduled for early 2022.
Assays on the way for early stage targets
At an even earlier stage are the Plymouth, Achilles South and Julias prospects on the northwest margin of the Montague Granodiorite structure, where assays from a 22,000m aircore program are on their way.
Plymouth contains a gold-in-soil geochem anomaly extending over 4.3km parallel to the Evermore find, with several historic workings but virtually no previous exploration.
Achille South features the southern extensions of the Achilles structural corridor, which hosts the oxide mineralisation at Achille North, the Airport prospect and the Caledonian open pit, with drilling extending out to Gateway’s southern tenement boundary.
Meanwhile the aforementioned Julias was previously drilled by other explorers but is being looked at in a new light after work at the Flametree prospect highlighted the ineffectiveness of exploration by previous owners.
A ground gravity survey has also begun at the Woodley tenement group to the west on ground related to a farm-in agreement with Golden Mile Resources, which will be used to refine early stage targets for first pass soil sampling and aircore drilling to begin next year.
This article was developed in collaboration with Gateway 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.
