Gold: Aurelia stuns with sky-high gold assays in NSW

Aurelia Metals (ASX:AMI) has returned a jaw dropping intersection of 1m at 1160 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 0.1 per cent lead plus zinc and 75g/t silver from infill drilling at its Peak gold and base metal mine in central New South Wales.

The company is carrying out the infill drilling in the high grade Kairos lode in preparation for development and mining access, expected in the June quarter of 2020. Recent work has focused on the upper Kairos area, close to the existing underground development.

Results show the upper area to be “variably mineralised”, with the top intersection located in a meaty 6m zone grading 196g/t gold, 0.2 per cent lead plus zinc and 13g/t silver from a depth of 139m.

This hole is on the northern edge of the recently completed infill drilling pattern and additional drilling is now underway to test the gold potential along strike.

Infill drilling in the central part of the Kairos lode also returned an exceptional hit of 6m at 132g/t gold, 0.5 per cent lead plus zinc, 0.3 per cent copper and 4g/t silver from a depth of 318m that included a higher grade intersection of 2m at 395.4g/t gold, 0.5 per cent lead plus zinc, 0.6 per cent copper and 9g/t silver from 322m.

These results are well above the 5g/t mark that is generally considered to be high-grade.

Aurelia’s deepest hole drilled to date at Kairos also hit a 3m intersection grading 3.3g/t gold and 0.4 per cent copper from a depth of 569m.

This was outside the most prospective zone at the lode, the company says.

To follow up on the deep result, the company has started a major surface drilling campaign from the eastern side of the orebody to test the lower Kairos area. This has the potential to extend the known mineralisation at Kairos by up to 400m downdip.

At the Hera Mine, the company’s shallow drilling at the Athena prospect has identified significant and anomalous gold mineralisation over a north-south strike of over 250m.

The top result from this drilling returned an assay of 7m at 6.2g/t gold and 1 per cent lead plus zinc from a depth of 52m including a 2m zone grading 17.8g/t gold and 2.4 per cent lead plus zinc from 53m.

Aurelia plans to start deeper drilling at Athena in the coming quarter to test for potential Hera-style mineralisation at depth.

In other gold news today:

DRC-based Amani Gold (ASX:ANL) has intersected deeper gold at the Kebigada gold deposit within its Giro project which could lead to further drilling and an upgrade to current resources.

A phase one drill hole intersected a top hit of 1m at 10.5g/t gold from a depth of 303m within a broader zone of 23.65m at 1.18g/t gold from 299m. The same hole also intersected a broad 58m zone grading 1.61g/t gold from 204m and 21m at 0.76g/t gold from 335m.

If gold is also intersected in the second phase one drill hole, which is currently awaiting assay results, the company plans to drill a further four holes targeting this deep mineralisation.