Mining

Kairos Minerals begins drilling Kangan project close to De Grey’s Hemi gold discovery

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By Lorna Nicholas - 
Kairos Minerals ASX KAI Kangan Project drilling gold Pilbara Western Australia

At Kangan, Kairos is testing a sizeable anomaly identified from airborne survey data and the CSIRO’s UltraFine+ technology.

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Kairos Minerals (ASX: KAI) has started drilling a “sizeable” gold target at its Kangan project, 70km south of Port Hedland in Western Australia and only 20km from De Grey Mining’s (ASX: DEG) Hemi discovery.

The company has kicked-off a 5,000m aircore drilling program to test the sizeable Target 1 gold anomaly, which is adjacent to major structures identified through aeromagnetic and soil geochemistry data.

Kairos noted the zone is about 1km wide and hosts similar large regional structures adjacent to the Hemi deposit which has more than 6.8 million ounces in gold resources with mineralisation remaining open along strike and at depth.

Executive chairman Terry Topping said the company was pleased drilling was underway in an area where there has been no previous exploration for gold.

“This is the first of numerous targets outlined last year to be tested.”

CSRIO UltraFine+ soil geochemistry program

The anomaly at Kangan was firmed up using a combination of airborne geophysical survey results and the CSIRO’s UltraFine+ soils geochemistry program.

Part of the regional CSIRO soil research initiative, this program involved collecting 1,594 soil samples, which were submitted to a lab in Perth for ultrafine analysis.

Traditional soil sampling is deemed effective for particles about 250 micron fractions in size, whereas the CSIRO’s technology can separate much finer particles – less than 2 microns in size.

The programs generated four gold targets.

“This work is part of an extensive regional exploration program targeting Hemi-style gold deposits utilising ultrafine soil sampling as part of the CSIRO soil research initiative,” Mr Topping noted.

Pilbara gold project

Kangan is part of Kairos’ broader Pilbara gold project in the region.

The project covers 1,547 square kilometres in granted exploration licences and applications.

Kairos secured the project in 2016 and has build a resource of 20.93 million tonnes at 1.3 grams per tonne gold for 873,000 ounces.

While drilling Kangan, Kairos is progressing reverse circulation drilling at Mt York, along with rock chip, soil sampling and mapping. The company is also awaiting results from soil sampling and drilling at Roe Hills.