Pic: Getty
Mining
Brightstar’s Napoleonic (short, yet impactful) aircore programs across the Sailor Prince, Rowena, and Jubilee targets will shake the tree for anomalism in some of WA’s richest historical mining and prospecting regions.
Brightstar Resources is poised to pop the cork on a 2,000m aircore drilling program over the historic areas of Rowena, Jubilee and Sailor Prince inside the prolific Laverton Gold Belt in Western Australia.
The digger has signed Strike Drilling, just as cross-referencing large scale mapping, previous reads and the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA), all imply the projects sit wholly within a striking mafic package.
Nearby interpretations of other parts of this mafic unit indicate it may be a layered mafic intrusion or at least has been extensively intruded with doleritic and gabbroic units.
A near surface hardpan is recorded sporadically throughout much of the project area, which explains the limited success of surface sampling (soil and grab samples) across the targets.
Brightstar (ASX:BTR) says the drill rig will be rolling out the aircore hammer with a focus on penetrating through those hardpans to access concentrations of higher-grade alluvial gold.
Brightstar managing director William Hobba says the historic records indicate opportunities for “high-grade gold mineralisation that has not been effectively tested by modern exploration.”
“In many cases, despite being previously owned by exploration companies, these projects have suffered from a lack of funding by being overshadowed by other projects.
“Brightstar is in a position to provide these projects with effective modern exploration to assess any value in the targets.”
Sailor Prince consists of several very historic shafts first mined when the country wasn’t yet a country – way back in 1898 – and most shafts never struck in anger by anything more threatening than a spade.
Even without the benefits of recent technological advances, records on the DMIRS Minedex website indicate Sailor Prince has yielded up almost 5,000 troy ounces.
This has geologists excited.
The numbers are substantially more than most small workings in the nearby district and modern exploration appears to have been limited to surface geochemistry and a small shallow RC drill program limited to nine drill holes by Placer (Granny Smith) in 1995.
The Jubilee prospect was first identified adjacent to Edinboro Castle by a ( possibly dyslexic and certainly not Scottish) prospector in the area west of the Idalia workings.
While investigating the area the prospector uncovered ~150 ounces of specimen stone rather than nuggets and BTR believes drilling through this caprock may uncover the entirety of a larger, possibly ongoing bedrock system.
The Rowena project area is linked to an area that has produced greater than 110 ounces of alluvial gold, spread throughout the near surface. Trace historic mining has also been reported – multiple shafts producing as much as 200 troy ounces in the early part of the twentieth century – good numbers that bode well for a highly-resourced mining company with a motivated management team and a great big aircore hammer.
Brightstar expects the new drills to help develop accurate anomaly maps to combine with aeromagnetic interpretations and accurately identify metal anomalies.
This article was developed in collaboration with Brightstar Resources, 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.
Mining
Mining
Mining
Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.
