Bardoc Gold hits high-grade gold extensions at Zoroastrian
Bardoc Gold has announced high-grade hits of up to 17g/t gold during extensional drilling at its Zoroastrian gold deposit in Western Australia.
Bardoc Gold (ASX: BDC) has recovered thick, high-grade gold during a drilling program at the Zoroastrian deposit within its namesake project in Western Australia’s eastern goldfields region.
The junior explorer today announced initial results from extensional drilling within its wholly-owned Bardoc gold project, confirming the potential to grow the existing 2.6 million-ounce resource.
Best assays included 2.14m at 11.44 grams per tonne gold from a 393m depth, and 19.07m at 6.38g/t gold from 296m, including 3.55m at 17g/t gold from 310m.
Bardoc Gold managing director John Young said the drilling program followed the application of a new geological model based on the analysis of historical datasets, along with state-of-the-art computer modelling.
“We have been able to transform our thinking about the Zoroastrian deposit compared with the original interpretation based on limited open pit mining undertaken at the deposit by Excelsior Gold,” he said.
“This recent work has allowed us to successfully define and explore the target host dolerite unit at depth, resulting in a decision to change the angle of our drilling in order to intersect all of the mineralised lodes at depth, within the favourable host dolerite.”
Mr Young said these initial drilling results suggest the deposit “could well and truly open up down-plunge with multiple high-grade lodes.”
“In light of this, we have decided to extend the current drilling program in order to lay the foundations to expand the Bardoc resource in this area,” he added.
The rig has now moved to start drilling at the high-grade Mulwarrie satellite deposit, located 65km from Bardoc. Three diamond drill holes are planned with the aim of upgrading the resource category to indicated.
According to Bardoc, drilling is also planned to extend the resource at the project’s Aphrodite deposit.
Newly consolidated project
The Bardoc gold project, located 30km north of Kalgoorlie on the Goldfields Highway, was formed in October last year following the completed merger of Excelsior Gold (formerly ASX: EXG) and Spitfire Materials (formerly ASX: SPI).
The project contains four main deposits – Zoroastrian, Aphrodite, Excelsior and Bulletin South – and several smaller projects within the 200sq km acreage.
It currently has a total mineral resource estimate of 38.6 million tonnes at 2.1g/t gold for 2.58Moz of contained gold. This estimate incorporates an indicated and inferred resource for the Aphrodite deposit of 20.2Mt at 2.4g/t gold for 1.56Moz of contained gold.
Bardoc shares climbed 23.81% on today’s news to reach $0.052 by midday trade.