- Golden Crown metallurgy appears to be amendable to conventional cyanide extraction
- Test work returns excellent gold recoveries averaging 94.3%
- Recent RC drilling identifies four shallow, stacked lodes that are open along strike and down plunge
- Planning underway for follow-up drilling
Special Report: Mt Malcolm Mines continues to spin a compelling story at its Golden Crown prospect near Leonora with metallurgical testing returning excellent gold recoveries averaging 94.3% using conventional cyanide extraction.
Golden Crown is the first of several prospects within the company’s portfolio that are undergoing detailed exploration to build a high-grade resource at its 275km² Malcolm project in WA’s prolific Goldfields region.
The prospect within the Malcolm Dam prospect area is a historical gold producer that yielded more than 1720oz at an average grade of 29g/t gold but saw relatively minor exploration.
In September last year Mt Malcolm Mines (ASX:M2M) defined an exploration target of between 120,000t and 150,000t grading from 10 g/t to 15 g/t gold for Golden Crown.
That’s equivalent to between 42,000-79,000oz of gold.
Subsequent reverse circulation drilling focused on a 150m by 120m target corridor interpreted to host plunging ore shoots returned a peak assay of 1m grading 61.39g/t gold between 16-17m and five intercepts above 15g/t gold.
Promising metallurgy
M2M has now woven more good news into the Golden Crown tale, with preliminary metallurgical test work using direct cyanide leaching on five samples composited from 25 mineralised single-metre intervals – sourced from four of its February 2024 drillholes – returning recoveries exceeding 93%.
The results indicate mineralisation from the prospect can be processed using conventional methods, simplifying future development.
“The testwork has confirmed that the Golden Crown gold mineralisation can be extracted using conventional cyanide extraction method, with excellent recovery,” managing director Trevor Dixon said.
“This outstanding result has firmly established confidence in Golden Crown as we progress towards a maiden resource estimate.”
Other activities
M2M’s interpretation of recent RC drilling results has identified four shallow stacked lodes that are open along strike and down plunge.
The main West and East shear-hosted lodes are separated from one another by about 20m of un-mineralised schistose felsic volcanic and volcaniclastic rock.
There are also indications of additional Upper and Lower lodes along with potential for mineralisation at depth as the average depth of all holes drilled to date at Golden Crown average ~57m.
Planning is currently underway for the next drilling phase, which will target the deeper extensions of higher-grade mineralization found in the West, East, and Upper lodes.
Subsequent drilling will be determined based on the outcomes of these drill holes.
This article was developed in collaboration with Mt Malcolm Mines, 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.