Mining

Kalamazoo Resources commences drilling at high-priority gold targets within South Muckleford project

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Kalamazoo Resources ASX KZR South Muckleford gold project drilling

Drilling will focus on three high-priority targets with similar style mineralisation to Kirkland Lake’s Fosterville gold mine.

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Junior explorer Kalamazoo Resources (ASX: KZR) has confirmed it is advancing a 4,000m reverse circulation drilling program at its wholly-owned South Muckleford gold project in the central Victorian goldfields.

The program is focused on the Fentiman’s Reef, Smith’s Reef and Charcoal Gully prospects which have been labelled high-priority drill targets containing highly-prospective epizonal gold-antimony mineralisation, closely analogous to that of nearby high-grade mines at Fosterville (owned by Kirkland Lake Gold, ASX: KLA) and Costerfield (owned by private company Mandalay Resources Corporation).

The targets are favourably located in the hanging-wall position of the major regional-scale, north-south trending Muckleford Fault which is considered a key deep-tapping conduit for gold mineralising fluids.

Kalamazoo has interpreted the prospects to be within obliquely north-northwest oriented second and third order splay structures off the Fault.

The company has previously completed detailed airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) and induced polarisation surveys over the drill targets, across 19 square kilometres and 40sq km respectively.

The results have assisted in the design and planning of the drilling program which will test a variety of targets including interpreted extents of the known historical mine workings; soil geochemical and ground geophysical anomalies; and favourable structures in depths of up to 260m at all three prospects.

High-grade mineralisation

South Muckleford sits over 161sq km of land, approximately 10km to the west of Kalamazoo’s wholly-owned Castlemaine gold project where high-grade mineralisation was intersected in February at the Lightning prospect.

Both projects are situated within central Victoria’s Bendigo Zone, which has historically yielded in excess of 60 million ounces of gold from alluvial and hard rock production.

South Muckleford sits adjacent to the Maldon goldfield, which is the seventh largest in Victoria with historical primary production of more than 1.97Moz grading an average 28 grams per tonne and alluvial gold of 317,000oz.

A detailed investigation into historical mining activities at South Muckleford showed the Fentiman’s Reef mine was in operation for nearly half a century from 1860, with high-grade production reported to be in the order of 1oz per tonne gold.

Available records show mining continued to a depth of approximately 192m and the high grades were associated with “lenticular patches and veins of sulphide of antimony”.