Alto Metals unearths more shallow gold at Sandstone ahead of resource update
Alto Metals’ mineral resource estimate for its Sandstone project now totals 12.4Mt at 1.6g/t gold for 635,000oz gold.
Gold explorer Alto Metals (ASX: AME) has revealed significant new assays from reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the Havilah Camp and Lord Henry targets within its Sandstone gold project in Western Australia.
The drilling forms part of a major program aimed at upgrading the project’s mineral resource estimate and which has already returned strong results from targets including Lords Corridor and Vanguard.
The Havilah Camp comprises the Havilah, Havilah West and Maninga Marley prospects and is defined over a 1,500m strike located less than 1km west of Lords Corridor.
In today’s announcement, Alto announced shallow high-grade gold results from Havilah including: 3 metres at 1.4 grams per tonne of gold from 51m; 13m at 2.5g/t golf from 104, including 1, at 21.9g/t from 114m; 7m at 2g/t from 15m including 1m at 8.5g/t from 19m; 6m at 2.1g/t from 27m including 1m at 9.4g/t from 30m.
Drilling has confirmed the continuity of mineralisation, outside Havilah’s current 20,300-ounce inferred resource, that remains open down plunge.
“The geological setting and numerous shallow, high-grade gold intersections over a 1,500m strike is very encouraging and an updated mineral resource estimate for Havilah Camp will form part of the project-wide mineral resource update, on track to be released thus quarter,” Alto managing director Matthew Bowles said.
Latest assays from Lord Henry reveal more high-grade gold
At Lord Henry, the company uncovered further high-grade gold mineralisation including a 1m surface intersection grading at 43.9g/t gold.
Other assay highlights include: 3m at 16.6g/t from 13m including 1m at 39g/t from 14m; 16m at 5.3g/t from 50m including 2m at 37.9g/t; 28m at 2.1g/t from 9m including 1m at 12.1g/t and 1m at 16.6g/t gold.
These latest results from Lord Henry are 1m re-splits of previously reported 4m composites from RC drilling designed to test extensions of gold mineralisation north of the Lord Henry open pit. They will be incorporated into the updated mineral resource estimate for the deposit.
Drilling to restart ahead of mineral resource update
Alto said RC drilling is scheduled to restart in February initially targeting depth and strike extensions of known mineralisation along the contact at the Lords granodiorite, including the recently discovered Juno lode.
The JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate at the Sandstone project current stands at 6.2 million tonnes at 1.7g/t gold for 331,000oz. These resources are shallow, defined to a depth of less than 200m and remain open.
Alto said work on the updated independent estimate is progressing well and is on track for release by the end of the current March quarter.
Assays are still pending for 22 RC holes from step-out drilling at the Indomitable target.
An induced polarisation survey over an initial 3km of the Vanguard trend is also underway and a gravity survey over Lords Corridor is expected to begin shortly.
Mr Bowles remarked on the strong start to the company’s 2022 exploration program.
“We are looking forward to following up on the excellent results delivered from last years’ program with the intent of driving further resource growth and making more discoveries,” he said.