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North Stawell Minerals unearths shallow, high-grade zone near historic mine in ‘Golden Triangle’
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North Stawell Minerals has discovered shallow high-grade mineralisation just 500m north of Victoria’s historic Bonnie Dundee mine, which in its heyday was delivering grades of up to nearly 21g/t gold.
North Stawell Minerals (ASX:NSM) has hit up to 12.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold in a shallow 12m zone at the Caledonia prospect within the company’s large landholding in the gold-prolific historic mining region of Stawell in Victoria.
Stawell represents a key point of Victoria’s renowned ‘Golden Triangle’, with the fertile Bendigo and Ballarat goldfields completing the trio that is responsible for over 66Moz of combined historical gold production.
These new drill results, which included 1m at 12.15g/t from 36m and 3m at 2.34g/t from 45m, are a similar tenor to what was historically produced from the Bonnie Dundee mine.
Historic grades produced from the prospects and mines hosted along this trend range from 12.1g/t through to 20.9g/t, which was what the Bonnie Dundee mine delivered at its peak.
North Stawell Minerals undertook reverse circulation step-out drilling along strike from the historic Bonnie Dundee workings, 850m to the south.
A gold-mineralised structure has been defined for over 900m so far, with an 18m anomalous gold intercept in recent aircore drilling confirming mineralisation 400m to the north and significant gold in historic drilling 500m to the south.
CEO Russell Krause said the discovery at the Caledonia prospect highlighted the gold potential of the Germania-Darlington trend.
“Historic mining in the vicinity has produced at grades over 15g/t gold and to return intercepts with the same gold tenor on the same structure is highly encouraging,” he said.
“The Germania-Darlington trend has been extended north to the Wimmera Park prospect, drilled by NSM this season with exciting first-pass air core results.
“The trend is now 10km long and includes four historic mines and two high-potential prospects – Caledonia and Wimmera Park.”
North Stawell Minerals is still waiting on the results of drilling more directly targeting the historic mines.
The company is pursuing potential multi-million-ounce repeats of the 5Moz Stawell mine, under a thin blanket of cover, that sits immediately to the south of North Stawell Minerals’ ground.
Significant regional greenfield discovery
Caledonia is the 8th prospect in the FY22 drilling program and a priority target for follow-up infill drilling. That’s because Caledonia hosts a 1km-long section of the Germania-Darlington trend, which geophysics has interpreted has a basalt core at depth – a structural setting like the Stawell mine.
The spacing of drilling so far leaves the target open in all directions and represents a significant opportunity for a substantial gold system along the Germania-Darlington trend at the Caledonia prospect.
“Drilling has highlighted that mineralisation is positioned on the flanks of the basalt ‘footprint’ and along its interpreted crest, consolidating similarity to the Stawell mineralisation,” Krause explained.
“The Caledonia project includes thin Murray Basin cover, although much of the Germania-Darlington trend is without this impediment to exploration.”
Krause said Caledonia was an important additional regional greenfield discovery for North Stawell Minerals, adding a prospect with significant grade along strike from an established historic mining area to the mineralisation pipeline.
“It is a more advanced target to complement the seven existing targets under cover identified in the 2021-2022 phase-one aircore exploration program,” he said.
“With the advanced 55koz mineral resource at Wildwood already established, a substantially more robust exploration pipeline with multiple, compelling Stawell-like targets has been consolidated over FY22, with a more targeted phase-two infill drilling campaign next on the agenda.”
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.
