Gold: S2 is looking for mammoth deposits in the coldest parts of Finland

S2 Resources (ASX:S2R) is looking for gold in one of the extraordinary, hard to reach places on earth.

That place is northern Finland, which plummets to something like -30 degrees Celsius over its coldest month, February.

There are some monster mines in the region but, overall, mineral exploration has been sparse.

This is because companies must grapple with thick forest and swamps, a climate defined by long, cold winters and short summers, and absence of deep weathering. (This means there’s no oxide zone, “so the terrain isn’t suited to Australian-style RAB/AC blitz drilling,” S2 said last year.)

But S2 is run by Mark Bennett, who formerly founded and managed small cap superhero Sirius Resources. S2 believes there’s an elephant (very large) deposit out there waiting to be discovered.

The company has just completed a winter base of till (BOT) reconnaissance drilling campaign on its Aarnivalkea project in northern Finland, which has defined a 1.3km-long gold anomaly with values up to 3.8g/t gold.

BOT drilling is effectively rock chip and geochemical sampling beneath the snow cover. It looks something like this:

S2 says the “overall size and magnitude” of the Aarnivalkea anomaly is similar to the original BOT drilling results over what is now the 8 million-ounce Kittila gold mine, also in northern Finland.

And the mineralised samples S2 recovered from the drilling suggests that they are “in-situ” or close to their source.

“The identification of this mineralised corridor validates S2’s view on the potential of the district and systematic greenfields methodology in the highly prospective but under-explored Lapland greenstone belt,” the company says.

Diamond drilling will likely commence in July once the ground is accessible following the spring thaw.

S2 was contacted for comment.

In other gold news today:

Red 5 (ASX:RED) calls a new 114,900oz near-mine resource at its King of the Hill project (KOTH) “a big free-kick for us”. It’s currently evaluating the economics of a bulk underground mine or a big open pit (or both) with purpose-built processing plant at KOTH. These near-mine resources are a big bonus, boss Mark Williams says.

“Early cash-flow is important, and our objective with this campaign is to delineate sources of oxide and transitional open pit mineralisation that can supplement production from the existing KOTH underground mining operation to feed a potential stand-alone processing plant,” he says. “This is an exciting opportunity for the company alongside the bulk mining story at KOTH which will unquestionably remain the centrepiece of our growth story over the next few months.”

Musgrave Resources (ASX:MGV) believes it’s discovered a large gold system under a Western Australian salt lake. Drilling at Lake Austin North, a few kilometres from Musgrave’s flagship Cue Project, intersected thick gold mineralisation including 18m at 3.5g/t gold, 92m from surface. The mineralisation has been confirmed over a 500m strike length and is open in all directions, Musgrave says.