Drilling continues to extend Saturn’s Apollo Hill gold system with several shallow intersections reported in a broad corridor between the Ra and Tefnut prospects.

Significantly, mineralised intersections have now been reported over a 1km long strike extension while highlighting the potential to grow the existing and already respectable gold resource totalling 944,000oz.

Notable results from this first round of assays from step-out drilling on this emerging southern extension to the Apollo Hill system are 21m grading 1.82 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 57m and 12m at 1.32g/t gold from 124m including 4m at 2.99g/t gold from 129m.

“These new results show the scalability of the greater Apollo Hill gold deposit,” Saturn Metals (ASX:STN) managing director Ian Bamborough noted.

“Infill drilling has already been undertaken in this new zone with the aim of growing our resource base to a size that will support a major mining operation.

“We look forward to receiving and reporting on the next batch of assays from the 20 additional holes completed to date in this area.”

Saturn Metals apollo extension
Resource extension drilling and results and holes for which assays remain pending relative to the published resource. Pic: Supplied

Drill results

The drilling of the southern extension is aimed at growing the Apollo Hill resource.

Results from drilling 200m south of Ra and at Tefnut further to the south indicate that the extension mineralised corridor is wider than is typical at Ra.

The current interpretation is that the Ra-Tefnut corridor is the major conduit for mineralisation at the southern end of the Apollo Hill gold system.

Little historical drilling has been undertaken along this corridor and Saturn intends to focus on this area going forward.

Apollo Hill

Apollo Hill has a current resource of 35.9Mt grading 0.8g/t for 944,00oz of contained gold with 59 per cent in the higher confidence indicated category, which has enough information on geology and grade continuity to help in the consideration of future mining options.

The modest gold grades are no impediment to mining thanks to a combination of having a single large, low strip ratio open pit and ore that can be processed using a well-understood conventional gravity and carbon in leach process.

To top it off, recent drilling has returned higher grade hits such as 15m at 2.90g/t gold from 79m including 7m at 3.84g/t gold from 87m that suggest that a considerable improvement to the existing resource could be on the cards in the next update later this year.

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Saturn 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.