Dreadnought Resources hits high-grade gold at ‘forgotten’ WA deposit

Dreadnought Resources (ASX: DRE) has reported high-grade hits at its Metzke’s Find deposit in Western Australia, where gold was discovered 109 years ago but was largely forgotten over most of the subsequent decades.

The company has drilled another six holes, with an average depth of 95m, at the prospect. Four holes have returned positive assays with the other two results still pending.

Dreadnought said the mineralised lode remains open along strike and at depth “with the potential for multiple lodes”.

The intersections returned 2m at 12.8 grams per tonne of gold from 51m below surface, 8m at 8.1g/t, 13m at 4.2g/t, and 5m at 2.4g/t gold. All of the intersections contained higher grade lengths, with one returning 1m at 24.8g/t gold.

Limited mining at Metzke’s Find

Metzke’s Find is part of the company’s Illaara project, 160km northwest of Kalgoorlie, WA.

The prospect consists of historic workings which extend over 700m of strike and sit within a 12km gold corridor.

The prospect was discovered in 1911 by a party working for prospector Frank Metzke. It was worked at the time for a short period, then saw limited exploration in the 1980s and 1990s.

Dreadnought has found records reporting a mining operation in the period producing 890 ounces grading at about 40g/t gold.

Dreadnought managing director Dean Tuck said the recent holes at Metzke’s Find have produced “significant” results from the fresh bedrock lode under the historical workings.

“These results extend over a strike length of 250m with the mineralisation open along strike and at depth with potential for multiple lodes,” he said.

Dreadnought consolidated the Illaara project with ground bought from Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) and the subsequent purchase of Metzke’s Find.

Lack of water impeded early exploration

Prior to Newmont’s involvement, the Illaara greenstone belt was held by iron ore explorers with no focused gold or base metals exploration, Dreadnought said. No exploration has taken place since the 1990s.

Reports of the original gold discovery were published in a Kalgoorlie newspaper in January 1911, but the problem was the nearest water to Metzke’s Find was 32km away.

There was some gold mined in the early years, but that operation was apparently short-lived.

The prospect was explored again in 1923 and the area was pegged. However, gold prices were low and there was no interest in Kalgoorlie in putting up money to progress the discovery.

There was also an attempt in 1931 to raise money for equipment to begin mining but that, too, went nowhere.