Gold-cobalt junior Blackstone Minerals’ recently acquired Little Gem cobalt-gold project is living up to its name following a gold discovery and high-grade rock chip results.

Blackstone (ASX:BSX) had a stellar day on the bourse soaring 50 per cent to an intraday high of 37c before cooling to close 39 per cent higher at 34c with close to 2 million shares changing hands by market close.

Blackstone has discovered a new high-grade gold prospect at Little Gem, called Roxey, where rock chip samples assayed up to 24 grams per tonne gold and 1.9 per cent copper.

But wait there’s more. Rock chip results from the Jewel prospect, 1.1km north-northeast of Little Gem, included up to 98gpt gold and 3.2 per cent copper.

Rock chip sampling involves sampling of exposed potentially mineral-bearing rocks. Chips are taken during initial mapping, and if promising results are returned, further surveys are undertaken.

Blackstone technical director Andrew Radonjic said the sampling program at Little Gem had delivered excellent results.

“The Little Gem project continues to deliver very high grade results and the company looks forward to accelerating exploration efforts over the coming months,” Radonjic said.

Little Gem Project, located in British Columbia, Canada, covers 195 square kilometres and lies in a well-endowed and high grade gold mining district.

Location of Little Gem project in British Columbia, Canada. 

The project is less than 15 kilometres along strike from the Bralorne-Pioneer mining complex which has a resource of 44 million ounces grading at 17 grams per tonne gold.

Bralorne-Pioneer is the biggest gold producer in British Columbia and sixth largest in Canada.

Blackstone acquired Little Gem back in July.  For investors, it provided exposure to the potentially lucrative and fast growing cobalt market where the dominant use is rechargeable batteries.

The project was discovered in the 1930’s by prospectors identifying a pink cobalt-bloom on weathered mineralization that led to three adits – a horizontal entrance leading into an underground mine – being developed.

A total of 1,268m of drilling was completed from underground and detailed channel sampling was taken from the adits.

Results from this work generated some exceptional cobalt and gold assays including 1.8 meters at 2.4 per cent cobalt and 112 grams per tonne gold, 3.3 metres at 1.4 per cent cobalt and 12.3 grams per tonne gold and 2.9 metres at 0.9 per cent cobalt and 12 grams per tonne gold.

Very little modern day exploration has taken place at Little Gem with most recent exploration being two drill holes completed in 1986.

Meantime, Jewel prospect witnessed some gold production from 1938 to 1940.

Blackstone is well funded, with cash of $2.6 million and has a current market cap of around $9 million.

Featured Companies

You might be interested in