Southern Cross’s second rig to accelerate Sunday Creek gold drilling

Wide and high-grade gold hits have prompted Southern Cross to mobilise a second rig to accelerate drilling at its highly-prospective Sunday Creek project in Victoria.

The rig, which will mobilise to the project before the end of this month, will focus on extending and infilling mineralisation around the Apollo to Golden Dyke strike zone that extends over a 1km trend, particularly around hole SDDSC033, which returned 119.2m at 3.2g/t gold and 0.4% antimony (3.9g/t gold equivalent) from 106.8m.

It comes as Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG) expects to receive assays from a further four holes that were drilled before it listed mid-May while a fifth hole is currently underway near SDDSC033.

Managing director Michael Hudson said while drilling has been progressing well with more than 9,000m of drilling completed at Sunday Creek since October 2020, the results received to date indicate that the project deserves additional capacity.

“We look forward to increasing the drill capacity at the project as we work towards a maiden resource and releasing further drill results as they come available,” he added.

With 13 >100g/metre intercepts (grade multiplied by intersection width) recorded to date, it is unsurprising that the company considers Sunday Creek to be one of the better exploration discoveries to be made in the state recently.

Sunday Creek prospectivity

Sunday Creek extends over 10km of old mines, soil sampling and early stage work.

While most historical work has focused in and around the old mines, step-out drilling by the company has already returned some strong results with multiple >100g/m intercepts – a big deal given that at least one major gold company considers three such intercepts in any one coherent body to be a significant discovery.

Adding further interest, just about 10% of the identified strike has been tested to date, leaving Southern Cross with plenty of ground to find more gold.

This article was developed in collaboration with Southern Cross, 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.