Latitude finds hints of Tropicana-style gold at Circle Valley

Reconnaissance aircore drilling has returned thick gold intersections, providing Latitude with early encouragement about the prospectivity of its Circle Valley project.

Results from the first pass program to map stratigraphy across the strike of a 1.2km gold in soil anomaly returned results such as 23m grading 0.64 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from a depth of just 12m including 12m at 1.05g/t gold, and 24m at 0.38g/t gold from 12m including 4m at 1.49g/t gold.

They also defined a 400m wide zone of gold anomalism.

Importantly for Latitude Consolidated (ASX:LCD), end of hole multi-element analysis has pointed to Tropicana-style pathfinder geochemistry, which is an encouraging sign given that Circle Valley is located in the same Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt as the 7.1Moz Tropicana mine.

Gold anomalism at Circle Valley remains open to the north, east and west.

“These results from Circle Valley are very encouraging. When we designed the program we were not expecting to intersect thick gold mineralisation. We simply wanted to map the depth of cover and improve our understanding of the geological setting to aid with future exploration,” chief executive officer Tim Davidson said.

“The 400m wide zone of gold anomalism at Anomaly A, and similarities between the end of hole multi-element results and pathfinder geochemistry observed at the multi-million ounce Tropicana deposit leave us very encouraged by the prospectivity of this tenure.”

He added that the company is also progressing Phase 2 exploration at its Murchison gold project with assays expected in the coming weeks along with the release of the mining study in early December.

Circle Valley gold project

Circle Valley is situated in the Albany-Fraser Orogen adjacent to the Archean Yilgarn Craton, which hosts numerous world class gold and nickel deposits.

It is considered to be prospective for Tropicana-style mineralisation occurring in reactivated thrust faults running parallel with the Albany-Fraser Mobile Belt, a belief that has been supported by the reconnaissance drilling.

This is particularly true of the pathfinder geochemistry found at the end of hole such as:

Alteration enrichment of up to 4.81% potassium and 1.77% sulphur;
Strong enrichment up to 1,220 parts per million barium, 436ppm rubidium and 136ppm lead; and
Enrichment in metals of up to 1.7g/t silver, 19.75ppm molybdenum and 0.1ppm tellurium.

Latitude’s exploration also marks the first time systematic gold exploration has been carried out at Circle Valley, a shortfall that the company intends to address with further aircore, reverse circulation and diamond drilling in the coming months.

Davidson says this work will initially target Anomaly A along with the Fenceline prospect about 8km to the northeast where thick gold mineralisation has also previously been intercepted.

This article was developed in collaboration with Latitude Consolidated, 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.