Meteoric Resources poised to drill Novo Astro gold project with crew now on-site
Meteoric Resources will begin diamond drilling at Novo Astro this week where rock chips returned up to 290g/t gold.
Drilling at Meteoric Resources (ASX: MEI) Novo Astro gold project in Brazil is about to fire into action this week, with the company reporting the diamond drill rig crew had arrived on-site.
Meteoric has firmed up four primary targets at the project with the diamond drill program to comprise 21-holes for 2,500m.
The primary targets were selected based on geological mapping, artisanal workings, soil geochemistry and grab sampling.
Novo Astro remains under-explored and is yet to be drilled despite hosting numerous artisanal mining sites that have been operating since the 1960s.
It is estimated these operations have extracted about 1 million ounces of gold.
Prior to planning the drilling program at Novo Astro, Meteoric undertook rock chip sampling at the asset, which returned up to 290 grams per tonne gold.
The rock chip sampling campaign also revealed 8.75g/t gold and 4.72g/t gold.
Concurrent to the current drilling campaign at Novo Astro, Meteoric also plans to carry out further geophysical programs at the project.
Meteoric managing director Andrew Tunks said previously this would involve magnetics, and an induced polarisation survey.
Dr Tunks said he anticipated the geophysical results would help direct the drilling program.
Juruena gold project
Novo Astro is about 30km from Meteoric’s flagship and more advanced Juruena gold project with both assets located within Brazil’s Alta Floresta Belt, which is a known gold region.
Drilling is underway at Juruena, with initial results exceeding the company’s expectations.
Last month, Meteoric reported it had unearthed a 20.6m intersection grading 94.9g/t gold at the Dona Maria deposit.
The intersections comprised a bonanza 3.65m interval grading 508.4g/t gold.
Dr Tunks said he had anticipated “something special” from drilling at Juruena but the results had “exceeded” even his expectations.
Two rigs are on-site at Juruena with final holes underway at Dona Maria. The rigs will then move to Querosene and Tomate to test targets at these deposits.
Meteoric expects to receive further assays from Dona Maria by mid-month.