Lords gold history looks like repeating for Alto

Alto Metals has discovered another new zone of mineralisation featuring multiple gold lodes between the historic Lord Nelson and Lord Henry mines at its Sandstone Project in Western Australia, adding weight to its theory about the highly prospective nature of the +3km patch of ground.

Alto’s recent exploration efforts have focused heavily on the “Lords Corridor”, where very little drilling has taken place targeting primary gold mineralisation and the company has determined there is a strong likelihood of discovering repeat gold lodes, similar to the Lord Nelson deposit.

Last year Alto (ASX: AME) discovered the Orion Lode, 100m south of the Lord Nelson pit, providing an initial validation of the repetition theory. The company believes that further supporting evidence has come in the form of recent results received from wide-spaced RC drilling about 1000m further south.

“These new results from the successful first pass step-out exploration holes drilled late last year have confirmed two new lodes within a new zone of gold mineralisation, discovered more than a kilometre south of Lord Nelson,” managing director Matthew Bowles said,

“Importantly, these holes were drilled in an area completely under cover and the style of mineralisation intersected is exactly the same as what we see at Lord Nelson and remind us of the first few holes drilled that led to the Orion Lode discovery.”

On Monday Alto reported intercepts including 4m at 5.3 g/t gold from 124m and 4m at 2.7 g/t gold from 148m, which it said confirmed the discovery of a second gold lode within the new zone of mineralisation.

The first lode was discovered 400m further south on the edge of an undrilled IP anomaly, with those results announced to the market at the start of February.

This latest discovery is further confirmation that Alto geological targeting model is working, with further discoveries likely as it continues its aggressive exploration program.

Lords gold history looks like repeating for Alto — Caption: Long section of part of +3km Lord Corridor

More results on the way

Alto resumed exploration at Sandstone in early February, with a second rig coming to site not long after to move through the remaining two-thirds of the planned 30,000m program.

While the drilling late last year was testing conceptual targets along the Lords Corridor, the focus to start 2021 was on extending targeting known gold mineralisation at Lord Nelson, Lord Henry, Orion and Vanguard.

Recent assay results from these target areas include 16m @ 5.2 g/t gold from 240m, 29m @ 3.5g/t gold from 49m, 16m @ 3.1g/t gold from 105m, 23m @ 3.8g/t gold from 106m and 17m @ 3.5m from 200m.

Alto has already sent core from 28 holes (5,213m) completed as part of that work to the laboratory for assaying, with results expected in early April.

“We have a major drilling program underway, with two rigs on site testing extensions of known resources and priority regional targets,” Bowles said.

“Once initial assays from drilling that commenced at the start of this year are received, expected early next month, we will then have regular, ongoing news flow throughout the rest of the year.”

Alto expects to follow-up results from the new zone of mineralisation 1000m south of Lord Nelson, which remains open in all directions, later this year, along with testing the undrilled IP anomaly.

Lords only part of the picture

Alto controls 900km²of prospective ground at Sandstone, of which the Lords Corridor represents only a small block in the south-eastern corner.

The project contains 331,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.7 g/t in indicated and inferred resources, with the bulk of those located at Lord Nelson and Lord Henry.

The deposits were only mined to respective depths of 40m and 90m because the mill at Sandstone was configured to process softer oxide ore, not harder fresh rock.

As a result, previous exploration drilling in the area has been shallow and limited.

This story was developed in collaboration with Alto Metals, 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.