Great Western verifies continuation of high-grade gold zone at Yandal West

Drilling by Great Western Exploration (ASX: GTE) at the May Queen prospect within the Yandal West gold project has identified high-grade outcropping gold associated with the high-priority Harris Find Shear Zone target.

Follow-up mapping has confirmed the continuation of the high-grade shear zone with rock chips of 33.1 grams per tonne gold and 4.1g/t gold.

Previous wide-spaced drilling demonstrated at least 550m of significant and continuous gold mineralisation along the zone at May Queen, which included 3m at 5.01g/t gold, 4m at 2.51g/t gold, 2m at 2.22g/t gold and 5m at 1.28g/t gold.

Great Western said the new results support its “enhanced geological understanding” of the Yandal West project which it will test with a targeted drill campaign in November.

“Additional confidence in [our] understanding of the gold mineralisation has been achieved because further veining and alteration has been encountered in areas where it was predicted,” the company said.

“We are now conducting further field checking prior to the start of the next round of drilling.”

Approximately 20% of the Harris Find Shear Zone priority area has been field checked to date, with 102 rock chip samples collected and the majority of assay results still to be received.

May Queen outcrops

Great Western’s investigation of the shear zone within the greenfields May Queen prospect has discovered outcropping altered mafic shear at two locations along strike of current drilling activities.

The first outcrop intersected 3m at 5.01g/t gold and returned a rock chip sample of 33.1g/t gold, indicating the high-grade shear continues south of the drilling and remains open.

The second outcrop showed some quartz veining within the mafic shear and returned 4.10g/t gold.

This outcrop was within the Harris Field Shear Zone near the site of the significant continuous gold mineralisation defined in previous wide-spaced drilling.

“These latest results show there is a substantial shear with continuous near-surface significant gold mineralisation along its length, located on the eastern side of the May Queen gold in soil anomaly,” the company said.

“Soil data indicates this shear may remain near-surface for approximately 3km and could be mineralised along its length.”

The next round of drilling is scheduled to commence in early November.

Large shear zones

The Yandal West project sits within WA’s world-class Yandal gold belt, 55km north of the 3 million ounce Bronzewing gold deposit and 60km southeast of the 10Moz Jundee gold deposit.

High-grade gold has been associated with three large mineralised shear zones identified within the project’s boundaries – Harris Find with approximately 8km strike, and May Queen and Ives Find, both with approximately 6.5km strike.

At mid-afternoon, shares in Great Western were trading 33.33% higher at $0.004.