Kalamazoo Resources drill tests for shallow gold mineralisation at Ashburton project

A 1,100 metre drill program has begun at Kalamazoo Resources’ (ASX: KZR) Ashburton project in the Pilbara targeting two highly prospective gold targets.

The shallow reverse circulation (RC) schedule is being carried out at the Styx and Charon prospects, which lie 6km southeast of Ashburton’s 1.9-million-ounce Mt Olympus gold resource.

The two prospects occur within an area of anomalous soil geochemistry.

That geochemistry has shown thick widths of “significant” pyrite mineralisation in outcropping coarse sandstones.

Rock chip samples have returned assays around 1 gram per tonne of gold.

Potential for oxide and sulphide gold

Kalamazoo acquired the 217 sq km Ashburton gold project from Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST).

It lies within the Ashburton region on the southern edge of the Pilbara Craton and just south of the iron ore towns of Paraburdoo and Tom Price.

The company says it is ideally located close to existing mining service companies and to the gas pipeline which passes within 1km of the project area.

Executive director and Ashburton project manager Paul Adams said mapped pyrite mineralisation at Styx makes this an exciting drill target with the potential to add significant oxide and sulphide-hosted gold.

At Styx two fences of RC drill holes have been designed to test for oxide gold mineralisation, while at Charon four RC holes will work at this prospect which has not previously been drilled.

Long history of gold mining

During 1996 and 1997 Sipa Resources (ASX: SRI) discovered four deposits at Ashburton–Mt Olympus.

Four open pits subsequently produced about 350,000oz of gold at an average grade of 3.3 g/t.

Most of that gold came from Mt Olympus which produced 242,000oz.

The treatment plant was sold in 2006.

Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM) signed a joint venture with Sipa for further exploration but withdrew in 2009 after spending $20 million at Ashburton.

Northern Star acquired the Ashburton project from Sipa in 2011 and, in 2013, released an updated mineral resource estimate of 20.79 million tonnes at 2.45g/t for a contained 1.65Moz.