No fool’s gold here. Pic: Getty
Glorious visible gold found in drilling at Medallion’s Gem deposit
Mining
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Gold is so rarely sighted, even in high grade deposits, that some geologists will go their entire lives without seeing visible gold in a drill core at their mine.
So news that drilling at Medallion Metals (ASX:MM8) has hit multiple occurrences of visible gold in the Gem deposit at its Ravensthorpe gold-copper project is sure to be music to the ears.
Hole DD21KP1033 revealed a number of specks of the glittery, dense gold from 102m downhole in drilling from the Beryl shaft – a historic ore zone discovered in the 1930s that delivered some of the highest grade ounces in the Kundip Mining Centre’s long life.
Assays are due for the hole in February next year and will be hotly anticipated, especially since the Beryl lodes are open at depth and outside the current mine plan.
“We know there is coarse gold at Kundip from gravity gold recovery testwork and previous sightings of visible gold in drill core and chips,” Medallion MD Paul Bennett said.
“However this is the largest and most significant occurrence observed during our 2021 drill programme.”
The multiple occurrences within a short interval “suggest we are drilling a potentially high-grade zone of the orebody”, he said.
“We have confidence that the Beryl lodes are open down dip and down plunge and given the proximity to the base of the current Gem pit design, we’d expect to see high grade additions to the mine plan come from this area.”
Gem delivering consistent hits
Gem, the renamed Kaolin deposit, is certainly one area of the 674,000oz Kundip gold-copper project that has shown promise in recent resource extension drilling.
Previously reported results included:
- 3.3m at 10.1g/t Au, 3.1% Cu, 38.6g/t Ag from 54m (DD21KP962)
- 12m at 3.4g/t Au, 0.2% Cu, 1.5g/t Ag from 78m (RC21KP977)
- 20m @ 2.6 g/t Au, 0.1 % Cu, 2.3 g/t Ag from 71m (RC21KP1050); and,
- 34m at 1.56 g/t Au, 0.2 % Cu, 2.06 g/t Ag from 91m (RC21KP1049).
Beryl may prove to be the most tantalising part of Gem thanks to its historic record of high-grade gold.
Uncovered in a diamond drilling program way back in 1934 by Beryl Gold Mines, a shaft was sunk in 1938 with mining taking place intermittently until it was shut in 1989 by Norseman Gold Mines.
Without substantial modern exploration, the three compartment timber-lined shaft extends to a depth of 130m and remains in good condition, with historic production of 10,476t for 3991oz at big grades of 11.85g/t.
The visual gold occurrences in DD21KP1033 within massive sulphide mineralisation is interpreted to represent down dip extensions of the Beryl lodes to the south-west.
More to come
Drilling is due to wrap up for 2021 today at Kundip, after a mammoth 2021 program that saw around 29,000m of RC and diamond drilling completed.
A single RC rig remains on site and a 300m diamond hole is being sunk at the Old Gregg prospect, around 10km to the north of the KMC resource.
RC and diamond drilling will begin at Old Gregg again around January 5 with a, second rig mobilising to the Meridian prospect on or around January 9.
Medallion says planning for the 2022 program is currently underway.
This article was developed in collaboration with Medallion 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.
