Ora Banda scores gold in regional first pass drilling

Ora Banda’s regional first pass exploration across its tenement package has proven remarkably successful with significant gold intersected in three of the four targets tested.

What makes the results interesting is that the priority grassroots targets in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region were chosen because they had no previous drilling or effective exploration.

Notable results from Ora Banda Mining’s (ASX:OBM) program are 10m at 2.22 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 52m to end of hole at Sunraysia North, 16m at 1.2g/t gold from 12m at Santalum and 4m at 1.82g/t gold from 36m at Gem Star North.

The company noted that of these, the results from the Sunraysia North and Santalum prospects stood out as the former tested the southern continuation of the Riverina & British Lion mineralised trend while drilling at Santalum tested an undrilled auger surface geochemical anomaly on the southern end of the interpreted Round Dam mineralised trend.

Managing director Peter Nicholson said the intersection of significant gold mineralisation in previously untested areas was particularly outstanding as first pass drilling is typically designed to vector in on areas of interest.

“There is now 1,200 metres of prospective strike to explore at Sunraysia North with something similar at Santalum,” he added.

“We look forward to seeing what the follow-up drilling campaign, scheduled to commence later in the year, may deliver.”

Sunraysia and Gem Star North

Aircore drilling at Sunraysia, which is located within the Riverina project, intersected gold mineralisation on three consecutive drill lines spaced 400m apart, defining a mineralised trend with over 800m of strike.

Mineralised intersections occurred in a mafic sequence with the best intersection occurring on the contact of mafics with a metasediment unit.

Ora Banda added that mineralisation at Sunraysia is open to the north for 600m up to the British Lion deposit, and south for at least 400m where weakly anomalous gold was intersected in current drilling.

Meanwhile, drilling at Gem Star North to infill and test extensions to previously drill defined mineralisation intersected gold 280m north and 300m south of existing mineralisation, extending the overall strike of anomalous gold to 1,200m.

Round Dam Trend – Santalum

Santalum is located on the southernmost extent of the interpreted Round Dam gold trend that is known to host the Waihi, Federal Flag and Walhalla mined deposits to the north.

The company’s drilling was designed as a broad first pass exploration program over the anomaly to investigate the regolith profile and map bedrock geology to help refine areas that are the potential source for the gold anomalism identified in the auger program.

It is now planning a second phase of more detailed drilling to target the identified gold mineralisation.

This article was developed in collaboration with Ora Banda Mining, 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.