Meteoric Resources immediately gets to work firming up Juruena gold targets for drilling

Meteoric Resources (ASX: MEI) has kicked-off an evaluation program for its soon to be acquired Juruena project, which contains the high-grade Querosene and Dona Maria prospects.

Last week, Meteoric announced it was purchasing Juruena and the Novo Astro gold projects from Crusader Resources (ASX: CAS) for a total of $3 million split into various cash and share milestone payments.

Both projects are in Brazil’s Alta Floresta Belt, which hosts major miners including Anglo American and Vale and is the country’s “most desirable gold exploration destination”.

Juruena has a current resource of 1.3 million tonnes at 6.3 grams per tonne gold for 261,000 ounces of gold.

The global resource includes the higher-grade Dona Maria and Querosene deposits which total 436,000t at 14.7g/t gold for 205,000oz gold.

A large tonnage, lower-grade deposit Crentes also makes up the global estimate with its resource of 846,000t at 2g/t gold for 55,000oz gold.

According to Meteoric, mineralisation at Dona Maria and Querosene remains open along strike and at depth.

Additionally, Meteoric has noted that the shallow portions of Dona Maria and Querosene have been “poorly tested” beneath artisanal workings and present immediate shallow targets.

“The Juruena and Novo Astro projects represent a step change in the company’s strategy from greenfields exploration to resource definition and expansion,” Meteoric managing director Dr Andrew Tunks said.

He explained the company had an “enormous database” of previous exploration, which is will draw on to take a “bold approach” to its drilling campaign.

“At Querosene and Dona Maria, we will be taking a three-fold approach that looks to: one, improve confidence in the resource and grow the percentage of indicated resources by drilling within the current boundaries.”

Dr Tunks said the second strategy would be drilling along strike and down dip outside of the current resource to grow it, with the third approach to include collecting sufficient samples from known parts of the orebodies to carry out metallurgical analysis and confirm the required processing route.

Previous drilling at Dona Maria and Querosene generated numerous bonanza grades, with Dona Maria revealing up to 10m at 101.1g/t gold, including 2.4m at 389g/t gold, and Querosene returning up to 3.6m at 554.3g/t gold, including 1m at 1,992g/t gold.

In readiness for the drilling campaign which is scheduled to begin in the June quarter, Meteoric has a Brazilian team on the ground.

Meteoric’s share price was $0.012 at market open.