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North Stawell Minerals heads back to Wildwood for more high-grade gold
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North Stawell Minerals has returned to the Wildwood prospect, where drilling has uncovered not just high-grade gold but visible gold as well, setting the explorer up for a bigger resource.
North Stawell Minerals (ASX:NSM) has announced more high grade gold, along with visible gold, following diamond drilling at the Wildwood prospect, which is one of several potential repeats of the multi-million-ounce Stawell mine.
This has positioned the company nicely to release an updated resource for the prospect before the end of the June quarter.
Top hits comprised 5.6m at 8.72 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 201.1m; 10.05m at 3.88g/t from 247.85m including 7m at 5.3g/t from 250.9m; 9.98m at 1.83g/t from 339.85m; 2.05m at 3.58g/t from 342.5m; and 2.5m at 2.77g/t from 292.5m.
These new drill holes have confirmed the effectiveness of ongoing geological remodelling at Wildwood to identify structural positions with strong correlations to the controls observed at the 5Moz Stawell gold mine.
“Targeting the down-plunge continuation of mineralisation beneath the historic inferred mineral resource (55,000oz at 2g/t gold) has added significant confidence in the continuity of plunging mineralisation,” CEO Russell Krause explained.
“North Stawell’s strategy throughout the Stawell Zone under cover is the identification of near-surface mineralisation and to follow the potential to depth.
“This is a significant contrast to historic drill programs, which primarily focused on shallow mineralisation potential.”
Deep success
NSM is having significant success finding gold under cover, something that was considered too hard and too expensive for ‘old timer’ explorers in Victoria’s Stawell gold belt to even bother looking for.
But modern-day exploration techniques, especially geophysics, means 32Moz of undiscovered gold thought to be lurking below the Murray Basin cover in Victoria’s Stawell region can now be unlocked.
North Stawell Minerals has its foot on 504sq.km of ground that includes the same structures and geology that form the foundation of the Stawell gold mine, which was once the state’s premier gold producer, before Fosterville, just east of Bendigo, came into production.
The gold-prospective Stawell corridor geology and structures ‘disappear’ under Murray Basin cover only 6km north of the Stawell mine.
Cover depths slowly increase to the north – typically 20-50m – up to 100m in the north of North Stawell’s tenements. Thanks to modern exploration techniques North Stawell can now lift the skirt on Victoria’s secret.
“The drill targeting benefits from a whole-of-project reinterpretation of the geology in advance of a resource update,” Krause explained.
“The reinterpretation further highlighted the structures similar to those controlling mineralisation at the multi-million-ounce Stawell mine, 25km to the south. These are embayments in the basalt that cores the mineral system (called Waterloos).”
Krause said the good drilling results were bellwethers for further refined targeting at Wildwood.
“Other similar embayment-type structures are likely,” he said.
“In addition, the east limb of the Wildwood basalt also has potential to be mineralised, based on the recent mining successes at Stawell.”
This article was developed in collaboration with North Stawell 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.
