Maiden drilling at historic Harden gold mine brings early high-grade results for Legacy Minerals

Legacy Minerals (ASX: LGM) has confirmed the receipt of high-grade gold assays from maiden drilling at the historic Harden gold mine within the Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales.

Two reverse circulation holes from the 11-hole campaign for 1,900m targeted near-surface mineralisation east-wards along strike and within the unstoped ground of the mine.

Preliminary results were complemented by the discovery of a parallel mineralised zone in the interpreted foot wall which recorded a best intercept of 1m at 6.24 grams per tonne gold from 134m.

Best assays from the two holes were 5m at 7.81g/t gold from 110m, including 2m at 19.09g/t from 111m (at a 1g/t cut-off), including 1m at 32.80g/t from 111m; 5m at 1.47g/t gold from 133m, including 1m at 6.24g/t from 134m; 2m at 0.25g/t gold from 136m; 1m at 0.41g/t gold from 97m; 1m at 0.64g/t gold from 143m; and 1m at 0.67g/t gold from 150m.

Legacy said the 19.09g/t interval was associated with quartz veining within a zone of strong sericite-pyrite alteration and shearing, and correlates well with the modelled unstoped ground of the Harden mine.

Two of the two lower-grade zones confirmed the potential for the mine to host parallel mineralised veins.

Assays for a further five holes which contained visible gold at 81m depth are yet to be received from the lab.

Drilling in fresh rock

The maiden drilling campaign is the first test of gold mineralisation in fresh rock at Harden in over 100 years.

The mine produced approximately 55,000 ounces of gold at 21.7g/t prior to 1919.

Managing director Christopher Byrne said the “excellent” preliminary results were reflective of what lies beneath the historic development.

“Harden is a long-forgotten mine that produced significant amounts of gold at very high grades over 100 years ago,” he said.

“Our initial round of assay results has confirmed it continues to host significant high-grade gold mineralisation.”

He said the company would also test high-priority IP (induced polarisation) chargeability anomalies to the south of the mine which have never been drilled.

Historic mineral district

The Harden project encompasses several historic high-grade gold mines in a mineral district which produced more than 460,000oz of gold from alluvial and hard rock mining.

They are some of the largest hard rock mines in the district, having produced a combined total of 75,000oz gold at an average grade of 28.6g/t.

Mr Byrne said the region presents Legacy with an “advanced-stage brownfields exploration opportunity” in light of historical assays of 3m at 10.5g/t gold from 20m and 3.6m at 21.7g/t gold from 115m.