Special Report: Great Southern Mining (ASX:GSN)  is doubling down on a potentially company changing drill program at the historical super high-grade Cox’s Find project in WA.

Following a successful share placement that raised more than $1.48m last week, the company will now carry out up to 5000m of reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling under the first phase program that is designed to extend high-grade gold mineralisation beyond the current workings.

Great Southern Mining (ASX:GSN) said the holes would target a number of historically identified and untested ultra-high grade quartz reefs that were delineated in development drives but never extracted during previous mining and which had not been drill tested.

>> Learn more about Great Southern Mining

The company added that several additional satellite targets had been included in the drill program, which is expected to start in early November.

Great Southern had originally planned to carry out 2000m of drilling.

“Cox’s Find presents an opportunity for the company to advance a historic high-grade project with exceptional exploration potential. It was an easy decision to allocate additional funds to expand the drilling program,” executive chairman John Terpu said.

“The immediate down dip and along strike potential of the historical workings combined with our updated geological exploration model suggests that we have a strong chance of finding additional analogue systems on our tenement package.

“The increased drilling budget allows us to test these great opportunities for new discoveries and resource growth.

“WMC mined the underground material by hand, and with a historic cut-off grade of 12 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. Add to this the material on surface and with operating mills being less than 15km away, Cox’s Find is a compelling project that provides tremendous exploration upside for shareholders and investors.”

Untapped potential

Cox’s Find is a very high-grade historical mine that produced 77,000 ounces at an astounding 22g/t gold back in the 1930s and early 40s.

Despite this, it is under-explored by modern standards with virtually no drilling below a depth of 60m.

Instead of drilling, original owner WMC explored by sinking shafts and drives to test the gold content of the mineralised quartz veins by hand.

This had the effect of leaving any ore grading less than 12g/t behind, which at today’s gold price above the $US1,500 ($2,200) per ounce mark is well above the 5g/t mark that is generally considered high-grade.

The ultra high-grade quartz reefs (circled in red below) that will be targeted by Great Southern each have real potential to host something along the lines of 150,000 ounces of high-grade gold.

The upcoming drill program will give the company valuable diamond core through the currently defined high-grade part of the deposit as well as test new predictive structural models, increasing the explorer’s understanding of the high-grade gold distribution, structural controls and orientation of the quartz reefs.

This will then help Great Southern design phase two of the program, with extensive RC and diamond drilling programs that will aim to extend areas of high-grade gold mineralisation beyond the current workings.

Work is also underway to determine a resource for the untreated stockpiles of ore on the surface that could present a pathway to early cashflow.

Not bad for a project that is costing the company about $1m.

Read more: Great Southern is about to embark on a company changing drill program at Cox’s Find

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Great Southern Mining, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in