Mamba Exploration identifies large gold anomaly at Ashburton project

Western Australia-focused Mamba Exploration (ASX: M24) has reported the discovery of a 300m by 200m gold anomaly at its Bettina prospect, within its Ashburton project northeast of Carnarvon.

The gold anomaly results are up to 15 times background 2 parts per billion gold levels.

The anomaly lies under transported cover but is centred around historical workings and with a depth of about 5m.

As a result of the size and strength of the anomaly, Mamba filed a program of works with the state’s Department of Mines Industry Regulation and Safety, and now has received approval to carry out reverse circulation drilling.

However, this drilling is not expected to take place until mid-year, with the company giving higher priority to its Calyerup Creek gold project in the Great Southern Region where recent drilling produced gold intercepts at shallow depths, including 15m at 2.2 grams per tonne.

The 50-hole program there resumed last Friday, with 42 holes remaining to be drilled.

Three of four projects have resulted in ‘significant’ drill targets

Mamba’s 100%-owned projects are located in the Ashburton, Kimberley, Darling Range and Great Southern regions of Western Australia.

Ashburton and Great Southern are prospective for gold while the other regional projects are being explored for copper, nickel, platinum group metals and manganese.

Managing director Mike Dunbar said that to identify an anomaly at Bettina with up to 15 times the background level of gold is encouraging.

“We are very encouraged that exploration completed on three of our four projects in 2021 has resulted in the definition of significant drill targets which will all be drilled in the coming months,” he added.

“The remaining project in the Kimberley is due to refined with airborne geophysics during the 2022 field season.”

High quality quartz veins already identified

The company says that historical rock chip sampling within the workings at Ashburton have identified a number of high-grade quartz veins with grades up to 46.5g/t gold, while historical drilling returned 4m at 21.5g/t gold.

Mamba has collected rock chip samples from several quartz veins in the workings and confirmed the mineralisation with grades of up to 36.5g/t gold.

Sampling of the waste dump identified gold up to 17.6g/t.