Drilling is giving Strickland Metals confidence that a very large gold deposit might be present at Horse Well. Pic: Getty Images
Strickland drilling uncovers potentially large-scale, high-grade gold system at Horse Well
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- Strickland Metals’ drilling continues to uncover the high-grade gold system below the existing shallow resource at the Warmblood deposit
- High-grade mineralisation remains open at depth and along strike with the deepest intersection to date only ~140m below surface
- Drilling at Palomino also extends high-grade mineralisation a further 150m along strike from the existing resource
Special Report: Ongoing diamond drilling at Strickland Metals’ Horse Well Gold Camp continues to uncover a high-grade gold system immediately below the existing shallow resource at the Warmblood deposit.
Notable results from the drilling, which extend the high-grade mineralisation a further 170m down-plunge are:
- 7.9m grading 9.7g/t gold from a down-hole depth of 138.5m including 3.2m at 22g/t gold (HWDD042)
- 5.2m at 3.1g/t gold from 171.1m including 2.2m at 7g/t gold (HWDD043); and
- 14.4m 6g/t gold from 114m including 7m at 10.6g/t gold (HWDD017).
Strickland Metals (ASX:STK) has revealed that the mineralisation at Warmblood remains open at depth and along strike, while the deepest intersection is only ~140m below surface.
Warmblood currently has a resource of 788,000t grading 2.1g/t gold, or 53,900oz of contained gold.
Adding further interest, drilling at the Palomino deposit has extended the high-grade mineralisation a further 150m along strike from the existing resource of 930,400t at 2.3g/t gold, with hole HWDD034 returning a 10m intersection grading 6.9g/t gold from 170m.
Further reverse circulation drilling at this deposit has demonstrated that the upper portion of this high-grade primary mineralised domain strikes over 300m while the oxide footprint has a strike length of more than 700m.
To top it off, the deeper portions of the high-grade primary mineralisation remain open at depth.
Warmblood and Palomino are the most advanced prospects within the broader Horse Well Gold Camp in WA’s Yandal greenstone belt, which is now believed to be a network of interconnected mineralised structures defined over a current strike of more than 4km with potential to extend this for at least the same distance under transported cover to the north.
Weathering concealed magnitude of Horse Well opportunity
“These results are very significant, not simply because they are strong intersections in their own right but also because of what they are telling us about the Horse Well camp as a whole,” managing director Paul L’Herpiniere said.
“The company has recently made significant progress in understanding the geology of this well-mineralised area and, most importantly, now has a clear understanding of the major camp-scale controls on gold mineralisation, as illustrated below.
“It is exciting to see the interconnected nature of these ore-controlling structures, which is giving us confidence that potentially a very large gold deposit may be emerging at Horse Well. The combined effects of very deep weathering and historically shallow drilling have concealed the magnitude of this opportunity until now.
“However, the company’s current program of deeper drilling is now confirming multiple high-grade mineralised shoots open at depth. One geological pattern that is well known with Orogenic gold deposits such as this one is that we always see multiple stacked ore-shoots as we drill deeper.”
Further drilling
STK is continuing RC drilling to test the northern extent of the 1.4km mineralised trend at Warmblood with deeper diamond drilling planned to follow-up on these results and further define this high-grade primary mineralisation.
This article was developed in collaboration with Strickland Metals, 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.
