Follow-up aircore drilling at the West Island prospect, part of the WA-based Cue joint venture between Musgrave Minerals and heavyweight Evolution Mining, has unearthed new thick zones of gold mineralisation.

The Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN)-funded drilling returned the strongest aircore hits yet from the  Cue JV on Lake Austin, with gold mineralisation over 150m wide in some parts and now extending for more than 1.6km. 

Musgrave Minerals (ASX:MGV) reported top new intercepts of 68m at 1.49 grams per tonne (g/t) from 110m, including 12m at 4.41g/t; 53m at 2.01g/t from 108m, including 27m at 3.63g/t; and 67m at 0.87g/t from 88m, including 12m at 3.33g/t.

This new gold mineralisation sits about 700m south of where diamond drilling was recently undertaken at the West Island prospect, which is part of a broader regional 7km-long anomalous gold corridor within the JV area.

Musgrave

The mineralisation at West Island is hosted within a structure like that hosting the high-grade Great Fingall and Golden Crown deposits 25km to the north at Cue.

The Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX)-owned Great Fingall and Golden Crown deposits host a combined 4.4 million tonnes at 14.1g/t for 2 million oz of contained gold.

Managing director Rob Waugh said these latest aircore drilling results demonstrated the extensive and thick nature of the regolith gold dispersion in the area.

“Where the Archaean regolith is preserved over the dolerite, thick gold anomalism occurs, however in the areas of stripped regolith, lower grade gold anomalism may also represent viable basement targets,” he noted.

The JV partners have now started diamond drilling this new target zone, which sits 700m south of previous basement drilling.

“The diamond drilling will test for the possibility of multiple parallel basement gold lodes which have the potential to enhance the economics of any new discovery,” Waugh said.

Nine diamond holes and 2,850m have been drilled to date of the 7,000m diamond program. Seven holes were drilled at the West Island prospect, with results from the first two returning a notable hit of 8m at 3g/t from 212m, including a higher-grade section of 0.9m at 19.7g/t from about 215m.

Highly prospective gold find draws Evolution in further

Back in June, Musgrave and Evolution discovered a new high-grade gold zone that prompted Evolution to agree to spend a further $5m on exploration on the JV ground over the next 12 months.

Evolution can earn a 75% interest in the JV area by spending $18m on exploration over a five-year period. To date, the company has spent about $6m.

Glen Masterman, Evolution’s vice president discovery and business development, said the recent drilling results had significantly increased the footprint of the mineral system identified on Lake Austin.

“The results reinforce our belief in the high-quality project we are delineating and validate the original area selection work by the Evolution team that led to the formation of our partnership with Musgrave,” he said.

“Evolution is well on its way to completing the 75% earn-in and we are developing plans with our partner to accelerate the drilling program over the next several months.”

Since October 2019, the JV partners have completed two phases of regional aircore drilling on Lake Austin and a third phase is currently underway.

So far 13,799m of the total 17,000m aircore drilling program has been completed, with the remainder expected to be finished by late November.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Musgrave Minerals, 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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