High-grade gold, silver and copper hits have highlighted the potential for Navarre’s Mt Carlton United prospect to provide satellite feed for its Mt Carlton Operation.
Notable results from the infill and expansion drilling at the prospect, which is just 4km from the Mt Carlton mill, are:
- 6m grading 16.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 4g/t silver from 23m including 1m at 62.9g/t gold and 385.9g/t silver;
- 4m at 4.5g/t gold, 182.2g/t silver and 3% copper from 37m including 1m at 2.9g/t gold, 352.2g/t silver and 11.9% copper; and
- 4m at 2.6g/t gold and 3g/t silver from 16m including 1m at 5.9g/t gold and 1,954g/t silver.
Navarre Minerals (ASX:NML) notes the new drilling results from Mt Carlton United (MCU), together with the recently reported high-grade gold and silver intercepts from Crush Creek, demonstrate considerable scope to grow the mineral inventory and mine life at its recently acquired, producing Mt Carlton Operation in north Queensland.
This is encouraging given that Mt Carlton has already outperformed forecasts during the December 2021 quarter with output of 14,603oz of gold, 100,781oz of silver and 610t of copper, placing it on track to exceed FY22 guidance of between 45,000oz to 50,000oz of gold production.
“The Company is extremely pleased with the tenor and width of the high-grade gold, silver and copper results returned from shallow drilling on the Mt Carlton United prospect during 2021,” managing director Ian Holland said.
“These promising results reinforce our belief that the delineated mineralisation has the potential to significantly extend mine life at Mt Carlton.
“We believe MCU has the potential to become a satellite open pit mining area, just four kilometres west of the Mt Carlton mill.”
Drill results
The results come from a program of 154 infill and expansion holes totalling 7,942m of drilling completed during 2021 over the prospect, which is interpreted to be an intrusion-related, low sulphidation epithermal gold, silver and copper mineralised system similar to the nearby producing V2 deposit.
These holes have confirmed that two distinct zones of mineralisation are present at MCU.
Mineralisation in the east is dominated by a closely spaced stacked series of shallow dipping mineralised lenses with several of these containing continuous high-grade gold intercepts across multiple drill holes.
Western area mineralisation comprises a continuous, high-grade, steeply dipping structure feeding into a stacked set of flat-lying mineralised lenses close to surface.
These lenses contain multiple high-grade intersections, including an impressive intercept of 6m at 16.2 g/t gold and 164.4 g/t silver from 23m.
All assays have been received and are currently being interpreted and geologically modelled in preparation for resource estimation, which is scheduled for reporting in March 2022.
Further drilling
Navarre has resumed drilling at MCU following a short break for the Christmas–New Year period.
Planned reverse circulation and newly introduced diamond drilling will be used to test multiple shallow infill and extensional targets as well as providing metallurgical and geotechnical information within the broader envelope of known mineralisation.
This article was developed in collaboration with Navarre 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.