Meeka has polished up its Murchison gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison region after upgrading resources at the shallow Turnberry deposit.

Not only has the Turnberry resource increased to 10.6Mt grading 2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for 685,000oz of contained gold (and the overall Murchison resource to 1.2Moz), there is also a high degree of confidence with 64% of the open pit constrained resource in the Indicated category.

The deposit, which has a strike length of 1.7km, also remains open to the north, south and at depth.

This is a positive for Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK) as it moves to complete a Pre-Feasibility Study for Murchison in the June 2023 quarter.

Further resource growth is also expected in the current quarter with the release of a maiden resource for the St Anne’s deposit.

Moving toward mining

“Drilling over the last 18 months has targeted the high-grade core of Turnberry, in addition to expanding the shallow oxide gold on the western flank. The majority of the open pit constrained Mineral Resource is now in Indicated, as we move toward mining,” managing director Tim Davidson said.

“In addition, the open pit optimisation used to constrain the Mineral Resource reflects recent mining cost escalation in the industry.

“This approach has reduced the size of the open pit portion of the Mineral Resource, which now stands at ~330koz. Cost escalation was mitigated somewhat through the addition of shallow oxide gold on the western flank which falls within the pit optimisation.

“Planning is in place to further extend the strike of this shallow gold in 2023.”

Meeka also started extensional drilling on the eastern flank in December 2022 after identifying an opportunity to further grow the shallow oxide gold at Turnberry.

Turnberry attraction

Turnberry has drawn significant attention from the company as it is a shallow resource with no prior mining depletion.

Additionally, the resource averages about 1,600oz per vertical metre from surface to a depth of 200m where the density of drilling is lower.

This offers the potential for underground mining beyond an initial open pit.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK), 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.

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