Southern Cross has uncovered a spectacular prize at its Sunday Creek project after drilling returned a 119.2m intersection grading 3.9g/t gold equivalent in a previously untested area.
The intersection from a depth of 106.8m includes eight high-grade +30g/t gold intersections and was returned from hole SDDSC033, which was drilled to test a 120m gap between three mineralised shoots located west of the Apollo shaft.
While the true thickness of the mineralised interval is likely to be about 60% to 70% of the sampled thickness, it still represents a discovery unlike anything else Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG) has seen at the project, just 60km north of Melbourne.
That’s saying quite a bit given the spate of high-grade intersections the company has returned to date from the project.
As such, it should come as no surprise that priority drilling is now underway to target wide, high-grade extensions of this intersection, which also takes the number of 100 gram metre intercepts (grade multiplied by intersection width) up to 13.
“This result at Sunday Creek is an unprecedented width of high-grade gold-antimony mineralisation rarely, if ever, seen in the Victorian goldfields,” managing director Michael Hudson says.
“A result of 119.2m at 3.9 g/t AuEq places Sunday Creek into a new realm, and builds on what is already a remarkably successful drill program.
“Continuity, with great width and grades, is now evident down to 335 m vertical depth in the Apollo Shoot that remains open to depth, while multiple adjacent shoots remain to be drilled out.”
Drill result
SDDSC033 is interpreted to have intersected an area where three mineralised shoots have joined to form a “blow out” of the mineralised zone within altered siltstones, dioritic dykes and dyke-related breccias.
As is typical for epizonal deposits like Fosterville and Costerfield, gold (sometimes visible) at Sunday Creek is hosted in quartz and carbonate veins. A large arsenic anomaly is also associated with the gold mineralisation.
Higher grade intrazonal results include 5.1m at 17.7g.t gold and 1.6% antimony from 160.5m, 2.3m at 26.2g/t gold and 3.7% antimony from 184m, and 5.2m at 14.7g/t gold and 4.8% antimony from 189.9m.
More broadly, mineralisation at Sunday Creek remains open at depth and along strike with a 10km mineralised trend defined by historical workings and soil sampling extending beyond the drill area.
Assays are also pending for a further four holes at the project.
This article was developed in collaboration with Southern Cross Gold, 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.