Gold: Has S2 Resources hit paydirt in Finland?

When Mark Bennett and his team at Sirius Resources spinout S2 Resources (ASX:S2R) announce a “potential discovery”, people notice.

That’s because S2, currently searching for the next Tier 1 deposit in underexplored Finland, is also known as ‘the guys that unearthed the world-class Nova deposit’.

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Historic drilling at the recently acquired Aakenusvaara gold prospect had returned thick, high-grade gold zones like 11m at 9.6 grams per tonne (g/t) from 113m (hole AAV-003) – but then no one followed up, until now.

S2’s first seven diamond drill holes at Aakenusvaara have intersected numerous zones 5 to 15m thick which are “visually similar” to the historic gold intercepts.

These holes define a zone over 200m dip and 200m strike which remains open east, west and down dip, S2 says.

Assays are pending which means gold-copper content is unknown, but here’s a sample:

Aakenusvaara is also 3km along strike from the former 220,000oz Saattopora mine, where copper-gold mineralisation was also associated with “visually similar” breccia zones, S2 says.

Assay results are expected throughout the next six weeks.

But S2 will maintain momentum by kicking off a phase 2 reconnaissance program at its Aarnivalkea project, where the explorer has already defined a 1.3km-long gold anomaly with values up to 3.8g/t.

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In other ASX gold news today:

Tempus Resources (ASX:TMR) will acquire the 225,000oz Blackdome-Elizabeth gold project in Canada, which produced at eye-watering grades of around 20g/t between 1986-89. Investors loved the news, sending the stock up 36 per cent in early trade. The advanced stage project, which cost $C500,000 ($555,479), includes the historic gold mine, mill and tailings storage facility.

“The Blackdome-Elizabeth gold project provides our shareholders with exposure to an advanced high-grade asset with a demonstrated history of gold production,” Tempus executive director Brendan Borg says. “The acquisition complements our recently acquired earlier stage gold exploration assets adjacent to the high-grade, multi-million ounce Fruta del Norte deposit in southern Ecuador.”

Kingston Resources (ASX:KSN) will accelerate drilling at the 2.8moz Misima gold project in PNG after raising $3.1m through a shortfall placement. A second diamond drill rig will be put into operation next quarter, focusing on resource extension and in-fill drilling, the company says. This means that there will be one rig focused mainly on resource development, and a second rig targeting more greenfields areas “with the potential for new discoveries”.