First Au reports ‘outstanding’ results from drilling at Gimlet gold project

Gold and base metals explorer First Au (ASX: FAU) has reported an “outstanding” gold intersection of 4 metres at 393 grams per tonne from 52m during a recently-completed aircore drilling campaign at its wholly-owned Gimlet project near Kalgoorlie.

The discovery – which remains open in all directions – was part of the 44-hole, 2952m program designed to locate mineralised shear zones at Gimlet trending north from the adjacent Teal gold project, owned by Intermin Resources (ASX: IRC).

The program intersected extensive gold mineralisation within the northern extension of the Yolande-Jacques shear zone, located approximately 100m north of the tenement boundary shared by First Au and Intermin, and 20m east of First Au’s discovery last month of 8m at 1.24g/t.

That discovery was made within a “strongly altered, iron-rich felsic volcanic rock with minor quartz veining and evidence of oxidised sulphides” and also remains open in all directions.

The well-mineralised Yolande-Jacques zone – which runs parallel to the shear which hosts the Teal deposit and can be traced for over 1800m within Intermin’s tenements – hosts the Jacques Find-Yolande mineral resource of approximately 132,000 ounces gold and recently-drilled grades of up to 10m at 6.7g/t gold.

Supergene domain

The aircore program encountered supergene and shear-hosted mineralisation in an area where historical drilling has previously defined an extensive supergene gold anomaly extending 2km along the western contact of the magnetic unit.

First Au believes the 4m intersection announced today “probably represents a supergene-enriched portion of the mineralised structure”.

The entire sample has been described as “fresh, foliated felsic volcanic basement comprised of approximately 5% pyrite”.

In June, First Au launched a diamond drilling campaign at Gimlet which started with a 200m diamond core hole to test under the eastern shear zone beneath the known supergene anomaly.

First Au chairman Bryan Frost said a significant outcome of the aircore program was an appreciation for the supergene gold domain and its lateral extent and depth from surface.

“Encountering the supergene domain provides the best vector to the gold-endowed shear at depth,” he said.

Promising intercepts

Mineralised intercepts at depths of up to 56m have all corresponded to supergene gold present in a linear mineralised trend striking 340 degrees and extending for 360m.

On the same trajectory to the north, another hole intercepted anomalous gold at 36m (4m at 110 parts per billion gold).

Mr Frost said the inclusion of this intercept extends the trend to 520m.

First Au re-listed on the ASX in June after completing a $6.2 million capital raising.

The company is pursuing a well-funded, aggressive exploration program at Gimlet and at the Emu Creek and Talga gold, copper and base metals projects in the Eastern Pilbara.

At midday, shares in First Au were trading 30.43% higher at $0.030.