Tanqueray drilling delivers ultra-high grade gold for Gascoyne Resources
Initial RC drilling has intersected ultra-high grade gold mineralisation at Gascoyne’s Tanqueray prospect, part of the Dalgaranga gold project.
Gascoyne Resources (ASX: GCY) has struck ultra-high grade gold during a maiden drilling program on its Tanqueray prospect in Western Australia, with intersections grading up to a massive 1450 grams per tonne of gold.
The company lifted a trading halt to announce that initial reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the prospect, located in Gascoyne’s Dalgaranga gold project, intersected an 8m wide zone of visible mineralisation with an average grading of 373.5g/t gold.
The intersection started from a depth of 53m, with the first metre returning 1450g/t gold, or an average of 987g/t gold over the first 3m.
These are the highest gold grades ever discovered at Dalgaranga and far exceed the grades returned from recent successful drilling campaigns at its Plymouth and Glenburgh prospects elsewhere in the project.
According to the company, the mineralisation contained very coarse visible gold within a quartz-rich clay zone.
Gascoyne managing director Mike Dunbar said the high-grade intersection “highlights the potential for a completely different style of mineralisation to the known 1.3 million ounce resource, which is currently being mined only 1.8km to the south of Tanqueray”.
He added that while the full significance of the discovery was not yet fully understood, it was clear that the potential of the Dalgaranga greenstone belt, which is about 90% held by the company, was “yet to be fully appreciated”.
The maiden drilling program at Tanqueray consisted of two RC holes designed to test a historical aircore anomaly that had intersected 9m at 1.1g/t gold.
Follow-up drilling is now being planned “as soon as practicable” to determine the significance and potential of the area.
Gascoyne began ore commissioning from its 2.5 million tonne per annum processing plant at Dalgaranga in May.
Earlier this week, the company reported more than 10,050 ounces of gold recovered to date with mining continuing to ramp up.
It is aiming to reach commercial production status in the December quarter.
“We look forward to undertaking the [Tanqueray] follow-up drilling as soon as practicable, while remaining focused on the ramp-up to commercial production of the current mining operations,” Dunbar said.
Gascoyne shares were up 18.18% at $0.325 following the news by afternoon trade.