The incredible scope of Magnetic Resources’ Hawk’s Nest and Lady Julie projects in the WA Goldfields is starting to emerge, with the ASX-listed explorer identifying new drilled gold and workings rich targets across nine areas over 14km.

Magnetic Resources (ASX: MAU) is becoming ever more convinced of the project’s potential to host shallow large-scale gold deposits that will enable it to leverage the strong Australian dollar gold price.

The results of a 2D seismic survey have been combined with around 80,000m of recent and historical drilling to outline the project’s scope and nature of gold mineralisation at its H5, H6, H9 and Lady Julie prospects.

A further 11,972m worth of assays from 117 RC holes and four diamond holes are still pending, with a new 79-hole, 7844m underway to test all nine key targets.

A high degree of focus in recent times has been at Magnetic’s 3km long HN9 target, with its thickened central zone believed to be open to the north-east in the direction of a seismic target 1km away.

But promising exploration results and follow-up targets have also been identified at Lady Julie Central and the 3.4km-long Lady Julie North, which returned a standout end-of-hole intersection of 18m at 2.1g/t from 32m.

Lady Julie Central meanwhile posted several high-grade results, including 4m at 16.66g/t from 32m in MLJRC214, 8m at 9.23g/t Au from 24m in RFB226 and 4m at 8.36g/t Au from 18m in RFB206. An interesting finding about the direction of the Lady Julie Central mineralisation has also changed its fortunes somewhat.

It is now believed to run north-north-east, rather than north-south, expanding its target zone to 1.5km in length, with more work underway to see if it links to the Lady Julie North system.

Magnetic Laverton
A gold intersection overview covering the HN5, HN6, HN9 and adjacent Lady Julie projects showing nine gold targets covering 14.2km, with highlighted intersections (labelled yellow). Significant historical gold and Magnetic intercepts (max gold projected to surface) and new planned 79 RC holes for 7,844m in yellow and 117 RC and 4 Diamond holes for 11,192m with assays pending in blue. Pic: supplied

Regional inspiration 

The company has barely scratched the surface at its HN5, HN6, HN9 and Lady Julie targets, with drilling only completed to an average of 63m, far more shallow than most modern gold discoveries.

If the history of the bountiful Laverton gold district Magnetic is exploring is any indicator, the discovery of multiple shallow-dipping, thickened lodes at HN9 is certainly something to look out for.

The 7Moz Wallaby deposit, 10Moz Sunrise Dam gold mine and 1.3Moz Jupiter deposit all bear internal shallow-dipping mineralised lodes known as shear zones, which have been found down to 1500m at the Wallaby mine.

The 3km strike length of Magnetic’s shear zones is another positive indicator, with all three major deposits being of similar length.

Magnetic managing director George Sakalidis is not shying away from comparisons to the big deposits of the Laverton region, noting Gold Fields’ Granny Smith (which hosts the rich Wallaby mine), Dacian Gold’s Jupiter and AngloGold’s Sunrise Dam all lay within 15, 10 and 35km of Magnetic’s ground, respectively.

“With the Australian gold price at near record levels of $2,445 the HN9 Project area encompassing HN5, HN6, HN9 and Lady Julie … is shaping up and has potential for a large-scale shallow deposits,” he said.

“The intriguing new results from the thrust drilling has added scope and size to the potential size of the existing and have also added completely new mineralised areas worth of drill testing within these eight surface thrusts that can be up to 6km each.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Magnetic Resources, 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.