Aurumin reports substantial gold hit at Central Sandstone’s Plum Pudding deposit
Aurumin (ASX: AUN) has reported strong results from drilling at the Plum Pudding deposit within its historic Central Sandstone gold project in Western Australia.
Seven new open-pit targets were tested during the first pass exploration campaign, which aimed to extend two open-pit resources.
Four of the targets returned positive assays based on a combination of previous geochemical results and structural interpretation.
Extensional drilling at Plum Pudding revealed a significant hit of 18 metres at 25.80 grams per tonne gold from 30m, including 2m at 215.20g/t from 43m and 7m at 1.48g/t from 71m.
A series of 1m samples collected at the time of drilling have also been submitted for assay.
They correspond to previous 4m composites from Central Sandstone that returned positive results.
Critical mass objective
Managing director Brad Valiukas said the company had experienced an “excellent success rate” at the new targets.
“These are great results from a first-pass drilling program and Plum Pudding is now a priority target for additional work so we can expand our modest 14,000-ounce resource,” he said.
“We are focused on generating the critical mass required for future production at Central Sandstone [and] these results are a great step towards adding the required additional open-pit material to support a restart.”
Plum Pudding mineralisation
The mineralisation at Plum Pudding occurs as a sub-vertical zone of stockwork quartz veining within sheared ultramafic rocks.
The bonanza grade intercept is believed to represent a localised sub-horizontal supergene enrichment, potentially from an unidentified sub-vertical structure.
Drilling extended and confirmed that the resource remains open.
The boundary of the dominant north to north-west striking mineralised corridor remains to be defined by further drilling.
Old Town Trend results
Several positions were drilled at the Old Town Trend target to identify and define the geological context and test for potential mineralised positions.
Quartz veining was intercepted in all holes with a best result of 11m at 2g/t gold from 28m.
The results were believed to be closely associated with massive quartz veining and were consistent with historical rotary airblast drilling that produced a best assay of 10m at 1.1g/t gold and 26m at 1.1g/t gold.
Strong gold anomaly
The Mt Klempt South target contains a strong gold anomaly confirmed in Aurumin’s 2022 auger program as coinciding with areas of extensive prospector activity and some historical workings.
Six holes were designed to test for shear-type mineralisation and potential relationships to interpreted intrusive bodies.
Low-grade mineralisation was encountered in composite assays from five of the holes, with best results including 9m at 1.25g/t from 16m.
The mineralisation at Mt Klempt South is associated with clay shears and patchy quartz veining and is on strike from north-south structures inferred from historical workings.
Structural corridor
Drilling at Two Mile West tested a 400m broadly-defined north-to-north-west trending structural corridor interpreted to host several faults representing potential gold feeder structures to multiple banded iron formation horizons.
Results from composite assays to date include 32m at 0.99g/t from 68m and 4m at 4.28g/t from 76m surrounding completely clay-altered zones.
Mr Valiukas said these localised clay zones may represent the inferred structural features.
Equity agreement
Drilling at Central Sandstone is being carried out by Perth-based contractor and Aurumin shareholder Topdrill, after the two companies renewed an equity agreement in March.
The agreement allows Aurumin to satisfy up to 50% of drilling costs invoiced by Topdrill through the issue of ordinary Aurumin shares, up to a maximum of $1 million.
It is expected to give Aurumin the flexibility to increase drilling while preserving its cash reserves.