Navarre Minerals begins diamond drilling at St Arnaud where previous work uncovered up to 1,174g/t gold
Diamond drilling at the Resolution Lode is on track to deliver Victoria’s next gold deposit in early 2021.
Gold explorer Navarre Minerals (ASX: NML) has started its first diamond drilling program at the recently acquired St Arnaud project in Victoria.
St Arnaud is located 240km northwest of Melbourne in the state’s central goldfields, with initial diamond drilling to comprise 2,000m over three holes.
The program is testing for high-grade gold on what Navarre describes as the Stawell Zone’s second largest hard rock goldfield.
Priority targets include beneath the historic New Bendigo mine where Rex Minerals (ASX: RXM) uncovered a whopping 1m at 1,174 gra20ms per tonne gold from 425m in 2008.
Navarre managing director Ian Holland described this legacy result as “spectacular”.
“This intercept has never been followed up and has gained additional significance following the 2015 discovery of Fosterville’s Eagle-Swan orebodies,” he said.
In addition to the three diamond holes at St Arnaud, Navarre will undertake a 20,000m aircore regional reconnaissance program.
The aircore rig is expected to be onsite and operating before the end of the month.
St Arnaud goldfield
Navarre bedded-in the exploration licence for St Arnaud which lies on the namesake goldfield which previously generated 400,000 ounces of gold between 1855 and 1916.
Mr Holland noted that the gold reefs within the company’s own St Arnaud exploration licence extend for about 5km then transition under Murray Basin cover to the north.
Navarre also holds an exploration licence adjacent to St Arnaud and aircore drilling there identified gold and silver which extended for at least a further 5km and remains open along strike.
This 2018 exploration program unearthed highlight intercepts of 1m at 67.4g/t silver from 50m, 4m at 6.6g/t gold from 48m, and 4m at 5.5g/t silver from 36m.
The Victorian Government has developed the “Gold Undercover” initiative which estimates there potential for 38Moz of gold to be discovered in the Stawell Zone of the St Arnaud goldfield.
Mr Holland likened exploration activity in Victoria to a boom – driven by buoyant gold prices and Kirkland Lake Gold’s (ASX: KLA) world-class Fosterville mine.
“We now get the chance to drill [St Arnaud], a wonderful exploration property, which to date, has missed out on the Victorian mining boom,” he added.