Great Northern’s Big Rush gold project is a diamond in the rough

Special Report: Diamond drilling has kicked off to test Great Northern Minerals’ (ASX:GNM) thick and high grade Big Rush gold system at depth.

Unlike RC drilling, which pulls up a bunch of rock chips, diamond drilling ‘preserves’ the core.

It can tell explorers and miners a lot more about their orebody. This is important as Great Northern aims for a resource at Big Rush in Q1 next year.

Earlier this month, RC drilling confirmed the potential for a “very large gold resource” at Big Rush, one of three historic mines held by the explorer in the north-east corner of Queensland.

These mines form the core of the company’s plans to develop a new multi-million ounce gold camp.

The initial diamond drilling at Big Rush is targeting high grade areas underneath the Central Pit area, where previous RC drilling returned hits like 4m at 20.73 grams per tonne (g/t) from 144 metres, and 19m at 5.11 g/t from 77 metres.

The closed spaced drilling will also provide important additional data “to understand any evolution of the gold system at depth” and add data for the planned JORC 2012 estimate.

The drilling is expected to take about 10 days to complete, with assay due before the end of the current quarter.

Great Northern anticipates a resource estimate to be released during Q1 of 2021.

Heap leach pad drilling

Sampling of the existing heap leach pad at Big Rush has also returned intersections like 10m @ 0.77 g/t gold.

A large 100kg representative sample has been collected for metallurgical test work to initially determine if simple processing can upgrade the material.

This article was developed in collaboration with Great Northern, 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.