BPM Minerals eyes major gold anomalies at Claw project in WA

BPM Minerals’ (ASX: BPM) goal to confirm a minerals-rich corridor near a major Western Australian mine is off to a strong start with the receipt of positive soil sampling assay results from its Claw gold project in WA.

Located in the highly-prospective Murchison region, Claw sits immediately along strike from Capricorn Metals’ (ASX: CMM) 3.24-million-ounce Mount Gibson gold project.

With the receipt of soil sampling results and drilling underway, BPM is now progressing what it sees as a “rare opportunity” to explore around 33km of largely-untested strike along from a highly-prospective shear zone that hosts a multi-million-ounce gold deposit.

That strategy has already been boosted with the identification of a number of gold anomalies with a peak result of 6.4 parts per billion gold from the new 665-sample soil survey.

BPM has been encouraged by the fact that the anomalies have multi-element support indicative of an orogenic gold system.

The anomalies have also been found to be associated with major structural targets identified from an interpretation exercise, which it believes are developing into compelling exploration targets.

Several structural targets

Designed to test several structural targets identified during the processing and interpretation of recently-acquired detailed magnetic imagery, the soil survey was completed within the freehold portion (southern half) of the project.

It was undertaken after BPM obtained an agreement to undertake exploration activities with the relevant freehold landowners via a heritage survey that was recently completed with members of Yamatji Nation.

The soil sampling results have now been added to BPM’s planning for its current air core/reverse circulation (AC/RC) drilling campaign, with testing of the geochemical anomaly targets now added to the program.

Louie drilling underway

BPM recently kicked off a 10,000m AC/RC drilling program at the Louie prospect located on the northern boundary of the project approximately 500m along strike from Capricorn’s recent high-grade (16m at 17.16 grams per tonne) gold discovery at the Sundance prospect.

Early drilling results have already identified that the prospective sequence of rocks that host the mineralisation at Mount Gibson trend onto and through the Claw project.

Notably, drilling has also confirmed that a large amount of historical drilling finished within overburden and did not intersect the prospective basement rocks.

Largely-untested areas

The company said in its ASX announcement today that it is particularly encouraged by confirmation that previous drilling missed the mark as it means most of the historical exploration drilling at Claw is completely ineffective, opening up what it says is a lengthy, largely-untested area.

Following the completion of drilling at the Louie prospect, BPM will mobilise the rig to the Chickie prospect, an approximately 1,000m-long gold-in-regolith anomaly with multiple holes finishing in mineralisation.

The Louie and Chickie anomalies were identified following a review of all available open file data sets from exploration drilling completed by Reynolds Australia Metals more than 30 years ago.

Reynolds completed limited scout drilling in the northern portion of the project area, targeting the same structure that hosts the Mount Gibson gold deposits.

The historical review of data included 138 AC and rotary air blast holes for a total of 3,882m.