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Strickland launches initial Yandal Belt exploration
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Strickland has started exploration activities after securing tenure over the northeastern flank of the prospective Yandal Belt in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.
A gravity survey is underway at the Horse Well gold project which has highlighted zones of particular interest and for immediate follow-up.
Strickland Resources (ASX:STK) also plans to shortly start a 10,000m aircore drilling program in the southern part of Horse Well, which contains the same mineralised structure that hosts the Horse prospects immediately to the south.
While the Horse prospects have total resources of 148,100oz of gold, historical rotary air blast drilling was either too shallow or too wide-spaced to have tested key mineralised zones in this potential northern extension.
Separately, the company has also started soil sampling programs at the Earaheedy South zinc-lead project, which contains the southern extension of Rumble Resources’ (ASX:RTR) significant Zn-Pb discoveries
“After a very busy three months of working expeditiously to consolidate the northeastern flank of the Yandal Belt, we are very excited to be kicking off our initial exploration programs,” chief executive officer Andrew Bray said.
“The aircore program to commence immediately to the north of the Horse Prospects represents some ‘low hanging fruit’ for us to initially test.
“Although there has been some very limited historic RAB drilling in the area, the gravity results show that this drilling did not test the main gold structure.”
Bray added that RTR’s discovery to the northwest puts historical results at its Earaheedy South project into new light.
“While our focus is definitely on unlocking value in the major gold systems within our Yandal Belt tenements, the Earaheedy South zinc-lead project could easily shape up into a very significant asset for the company.”
Exploration work
The gravity survey is being carried out to refine drill targeting for upcoming programs and preliminary results have already highlighted key structural trends and targets that had little or no drilling across them.
Beside clearly defining the Celia Shear structure, the survey has also identified several north-west secondary structures as well as potential areas of dilation, which are ideal targets for gold mineralisation.
Over at Earaheedy South, which is host to the southern extension of Rumble’s recent zinc-lead discoveries at the Earaheedy project, Strickland has already interpreted its prospective strike to over 30km.
While that same mineralised structure has been intersected in historical first pass shallow drilling, no substantive work has been carried out since 2011 despite this previous work returning results such as 26m at 2% zinc+lead and 17m at 2.5% zinc+lead.
Previous explorers believed the controls on the Iroquois mineralisation were stratigraphic and focused a lot of exploration drilling targeting a northeast shallowly dipping stratigraphy.
However, the company believes the mineralisation is structurally controlled, with the main mineralised structure trending in a northeast-southwest orientation.
Earaheedy South mineralisation remains open at depth and along strike in both directions.
Upcoming activity
Besides the initial aircore drilling program, a 4,000m RC and diamond program will start in mid September.
Strickland also intends to carry out a broader 100,000m aircore campaign covering about 80km of the Celia Shear zone from mid-October.
This drilling will be carried out on an initial wide-spaced 800m by 200m wide grid with follow-up infill drilling completed as required.
A reverse circulation rig is expected to start a 30,000m drill program in the March 2022 quarter.
This article was developed in collaboration with Strickland Resources, 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.
