Gateway Mining partner DiscovEx Resources reports gravity survey backs-up Edjudina soil sampling excitement
A 10,000m aircore drilling program is now underway at Spartan and other priority targets within Edjudina.
A gravity survey has backed-up the Spartan gold discovery for Gateway Mining (ASX: GML) and joint venture partner DiscovEx Resources (ASX: DCX), with an aircore program now underway to test the anomaly.
The gravity survey builds on a gold target first revealed earlier this year, within the Edjudina project located 250km northeast of Kalgoorlie.
Back in May, a soil sampling program produced what DiscoverEx called an “exceptional” gold target at its then recently acquired ground at Edjudina in Western Australia.
DiscovEx had just taken an 80% interest in two tenements, with the previous owner retaining a 20% free carried interest until the decision to mine and a 1.5% royalty on output (not including any iron ore produced).
Geochemical sampling at the Spartan prospect had identified an anomalous gold trend over 1.3km, with values up to 50 parts per billion.
There were also high tenor returns up to 100ppb (or 0.1 grams per tonne) gold.
Edjudina is district with ‘numerous’ major gold deposits
In the latest development reported today, DiscovEx says the gravity survey has confirmed the location of intrusives proximal to the Spartan anomaly at Edjudina.
That company has begun a 10,000m aircore drilling program at Spartan and other priority targets within Edjudina.
Edjudina lies in the southern portion of the Laverton district, which is located around 700km north-east of Perth and hosts numerous major gold deposits, including Anglogold Ashanti’s (ASX: AGG) Sunrise Dam 10 million ounce gold mine, Saracen Mineral Holdings (ASX: SAR) 2Moz Carosue Dam gold mine and Matsa Resources (ASX: MAT) 0.5Moz Red October gold mine.
It is located in the highly mineralised Laverton Tectonic Zone of the Eastern Goldfields Province of the Yilgarn Craton and is considered prospective for gold and nickel-copper mineralisation.
Previous work on the Edjudina tenure, mostly during the 1980s and 1990s, included soil sampling, geophysics (both airborne and ground-based), aircore drilling and minimal reverse circulation drilling.
Much of this exploration effort was undertaken at a time when the gold price was less than US$300/oz and therefore the hurdles to mining were much higher than today.
Second key option deal by Gateway
As well as announcing the DiscovEx progress in May, Gateway inked a deal with Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) giving Rio the option to acquire 100% of the iron ore rights in DiscovEx’s Sylvania project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.
Gateway currently holds a 1.5% gross royalty over two iron ore tenements within the project.
Both divestments were geared towards allowing Gateway to maintain a focus on exploration and development of its flagship Gidgee gold project, also in WA.