Dart Mining pinpoints potential ‘large-scale’ gold system at Buckland

Dart Mining (ASX: DTM) has pinpointed what it believes could be a large-scale gold mineralised system at its wholly-owned Buckland project in Victoria’s north-east.

The company has undertaken geological mapping and geochemical soil sampling in recent months, which resulted in the discovery of an 8.5km Fairleys shear system across the 750 square kilometre Buckland project.

According to Dart, uncovering the shear system affords the company “high potential” for discovering a large-scale gold system.

Back in 2008, Dart drilled two diamond holes into Fairleys which returned 21m at 1.41 grams per tonne gold and 40.4m at 0.84g/t gold.

“Dart has made a substantial exploration breakthrough at our Buckland project where we have now proven the existence of regionally extensive mineralised fault structures that have excellent potential to host a large-scale gold deposit,” Dart managing director James Chirnside said.

“We see some similarities between our mineralised structures and the Fosterville Fault that is associated with the fabulous Fosterville gold deposit of Kirkland Lake Gold near Bendigo.”

“Naturally, therefore, we now consider the Buckland project to be our highest priority gold project and we are anxious to progress exploration rapidly,” he added.

Buckland gold project

Buckland is located in the Buckland Valley, which was exploited for its alluvial gold in the mid-1800s.

Hard rock mining also occurred in the region during this period but had stopped by 1900.

Dart noted only incomplete records exist for the area’s small hard rock mines and prospects.

According to Dart, the high amount of alluvial mining in the region was not proportionate to the minor hard rock mining that was undertaken.

“Dart surmised that potential existed for a larger bedrock source of the alluvial gold,” the company explained.

During 2014, Dart followed up the diamond drill results with nine reverse circulation holes to 66m depths and across 100m where rock chips returned 5.6m at 10.7g/t gold.

One hole intersected 3m at 18.37g/t gold above historic workings.

Despite the company’s positive results, its focus turned to lithium. However, the prevailing all-time high gold prices has prompted the company to renew its focus on Buckland.

Mr Chirnside also pointed out that Victoria was one of the most “heavily endowed” gold regions world-wide.

Shares in Dart were steady at $0.005 in late morning trade.