There’s nothing quite as exciting for an explorer as visible gold, which is just what Viking Mines has found beneath historic workings at the ‘First Hit’ gold mine.

Viking Mines (ASX: VKA) revealed that 2 of 6 holes from a diamond drilling program has returned core with visible specks of the precious metal in multiple zones from the Goldfields orebody.

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Visible gold in drill core from the First Hit gold mine. Picture: Viking Mines

The deep holes were targeting down plunge extensions beneath and to the south of historical development and drilling at the Kylie and Ida lodes.

While gold is known for the alluring yellow shine it gives gold bars and wedding bands it rarely accumulates masses large enough to be seen in nature, particularly at depth.

That is why the core released by Viking today will get the juices of gold bugs flowing.

First Hit produced 30,000oz at a decent grade of 7.7g/t for Barra Resources before its closure in 2002, when gold prices were US$320/oz, around a fifth of current levels.

Identifying visible gold specks below the limits of the old workings and historical drilling at ~325m and ~327m in hole VDD013 and ~300m and ~303m respectively in hole VDD015 highlights the orebody’s potential to keep going.

“I am excited to be able to report that we have now shipped all of our core to Perth and commenced a follow up review of key intersections from the drilling completed on First Hit,” Viking CEO and MD Julian Woodcock said.

“So far, 2 of the 6 holes reported in this release have been reviewed and visible gold has been sighted in multiple zones in both holes.

“These holes form part of the depth extension drilling and provide positive encouragement for the continuation of mineralisation at depth for First Hit.”

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New exploration targets in the works

Both holes intersected their target zones in shears with quartz veining consistent with gold mineralisation apparent.

On top of that core samples from four other diamond drill holes have been sent to Perth for analysis.

They were step out holes, testing the continuation of the First Hit structures several hundred metres along strike to the north and south.

All four holes, drilled to depths of between 110m and 200m, hit their target zones. These will be reviewed with a focus on defining new potential gold shoots.

An aircore program of 328 holes was also completed at First Hit, with results back for around 23% of the campaign. Once the dataset is complete it will be used by Viking to identify new target corridors that have the potential to host gold.

Menzies a rising gold district

If location is a big part of the equation for gold discoveries Viking will have rising confidence it is in the right postcode.

First Hit is located West of Menzies, a historic gold rush town that was once home to dozens of mines and thousands of people.

Today a little over 100 folk live in the remote Goldfields town, but in these gold exploration boom times it has re-emerged as a headline destination.

Just yesterday Nex Metals Exploration and Metalicity soared on a high-grade hit at their Kookynie project.

First Hit is located just 50km north of the Davyhurst Mill, recently recommissioned by Ora Banda Mining and 150km north-west of the gold mining and service hub of Kalgoorlie.

Previously drilling at First Hit has garnered bonanza grades of up to 77.6g/t.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Viking Mines, 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.