Navarre Minerals and Catalyst Metals unearth bonanza gold at Tandarra

Navarre Minerals (ASX: NML) and joint venture partner Catalyst Metals (ASX: CYL) have revealed up to 112 grams per tonne gold was intercepted while drilling at the Tandarra project which is 40km north of Victoria’s Bendigo goldfield.

The companies completed a 60-hole, 6,764m aircore drilling program at the project’s Macnaughtan and Lawry prospects as well as 3,800m of diamond and reverse circulation drilling at Macnaughtan and Tomorrow.

According to Navarre, final assays from aircore drilling at Macnaughtan have produced “highly encouraging results”.

One hole returned a 1m interval grading 112g/t gold. In the same hole, drilling hit 9m at 14.8g/t gold from 106m, and 10m at 1.7g/t gold from 119m.

Further west, another hole intercepted 4m at 1g/t gold from 62m.

At the Tomorrow prospect, drilling uncovered best intercepts of 2.55m at 2.5g/t gold from 177.7m and 3m at 13.8g/t gold from 202m.

Although the gold values were lower, Navarre noted the presence of fault repetitions at Tomorrow warranted further investigation.

“The Macnaughtan line has emerged as a second zone of gold mineralisation with high grades intersected in both diamond and aircore drilling over a strike length of more than 1,000m,” Catalyst technical director Bruce Kay said.

“Further gold intersections at Tomorrow support the presence of repeat structures that could be mined by underground methods,” he added.

Tandarra gold project

Navarre holds a 49% stake in Tandarra with Catalyst owning the majority 51%.

Today’s results follow on from assays reported in mid-April.

Better previous intersections from Macnaughtan then were 11m at 0.91g/t gold from 71m, and 5m at 0.72g/t gold from 57m.

In upcoming exploration, the duo will focus on the Tomorrow-style zone on the eastern limb of the Macnaughtan anticline.

Exploration will also investigate further east along the plane of the inferred west-dipping Macnaughtan fault.

As soon as access allows, geophysics and infill drilling will be undertaken to test strike extensions to the hole that hit 9m at 14.8g/t gold at Macnaughtan.

At Tomorrow, a diamond tail will test the at depth the zone which unearthed the 3m interval grading 13.8g/t gold.