North Stawell Minerals, one of last year’s largest gold floats, has hit paydirt during drilling in “one of Australia’s most prospective and historic gold provinces”.

North Stawell Minerals (ASX:NSM) has uncovered shallow high-grade gold at its Wildwood prospect in the Stawell gold region of Victoria – part of the state’s famed ‘Golden Triangle’.

The news pushed shares up over 11 per cent per cent to a high of 50c on Monday.

North Stawell Minerals (ASX:NSM) share price chart:

The first assays in a 10,000m drilling program at the prospect have returned a top hit of 1m at 16.65 grams per tonne (g/t) from just 30m. This high-grade hit from hole RC007 also included intervals of 4m at 6.88g/t from 30-34m and 10m at 3.51g/t from 30-40m.

For context, anything above 5g/t is generally considered high-grade.

Demonstrating the potential for more gold, hole RC007 – which was drilled down to 40m –ended in mineralisation and assays are still pending for the upper section of the hole.

“RC007 delivered highly encouraging gold assays from a 10m interval from 30-40m downhole with the hole finishing in gold mineralisation,” CEO Steven Tambanis said.

“Additional drill lines are being planned for this shallow portion of the basalt dome and we note that there are significant areas of the Wildwood basalt that are as yet undrilled.”

Victorian gold hunt is delivering early for North Stawell
The Wildwood basalt dome is represented as a 3D yellow solid. Planned surface drill holes are in red (diamond core) and blue (reverse circulation or RC). Completed holes are indicated in green (Diamond and RC drillholes). Pic: Supplied.

North Stawell is undertaking an initial 10,000m of a large, two-year 75,000m drilling blitz, starting with the Wildwood prospect.

It’s one of the largest drilling campaigns undertaken by a junior ASX-listed company in recent times.

The company made Wildwood its first priority after a review of historical drilling showed potential for shallow, high-grade gold.

Stawell is a key part of Victoria’s ‘Golden Triangle’, responsible for over 66 million oz of combined historical gold production. The Stawell Mineralised Corridor itself has yielded 6 million oz of historical production.

North Stawell’s extensive landholding takes in 51 strike kilometres of the Stawell Mineralised Corridor to the north-west of the Stawell gold mine, which until 2008 was Victoria’s premier gold producer and has produced over 5 million oz.

The company’s tenements already include 43 individual gold targets, 17 of which are basalt domes similar to the 5Moz Magdala dome. North Stawell believes there is strong potential for the discovery of a large gold mineralised system under cover, using the Magdala dome as an exploration model.

“We regard the Stawell Mineralised Corridor to be one of Australia’s most prospective and historic gold provinces and have a target-rich environment to explore over the next two years with an experienced and enthusiastic team,” Tambanis said.

“Many prospects are already demonstrated to be gold mineralised and we look forward to commencing regional target exploration once the bulk of our first Wildwood drilling is completed in early 2021.

“Geochemical and geophysical programs planned during the December quarter will commence during the current quarter.”

North Stawell says drilling is proceeding to plan. The company has three rigs in the field with 2,277m drilled in January and over 2,000m drilled to date in February.

Over 1,000 drill samples have been submitted for assay, with results expected to be released during the current quarter.

 

This article was developed in collaboration with North Stawell Minerals, 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.

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