PNX Metals starts drilling high-priority targets at Fountain Head gold project
PNX Metals has discovered up to 215g/t gold from drilling at its Fountain Head project in the Northern Territory.
Junior explorer PNX Metals (ASX: PNX) has commenced a reverse circulation drilling campaign at its Fountain Head gold project in the Northern Territory to test new near-surface targets for high-grade mineralisation.
The four-week campaign is the first of its kind since PNX released a mineral resource estimate for the project in June last year totalling 2.94 million tonnes at 1.7 grams per tonnes gold for 156,000 ounces.
Field mapping and geological data suggests gold mineralisation at Fountain Head exists over a 5km strike extent along an anticline fold hinge from the Banner prospect in the west to Lady Josephine West in the southeast.
The main mineral lodes of Fountain Head and Tally Ho remain open along strike and down dip and host the majority of the current resource.
Drilling targets
PNX plans to drill test five high-priority areas at South-East Zone, Far East Zone, NW Breccia, Banner and Far West for a total 2,800m.
South-East Zone contains multiple parallel north-south trending zones of strong bedrock gold anomalism supported by historic rotary air blast drilling and surface workings within a quartz-veined sequence of weathered sediments.
The drill holes have an average depth of 10m and only a small portion of bedrock has previously been tested with deeper drilling which returned results of 1m at 9.98g/t gold from 37m; 1m at 93.7g/t from 19m; 1m at 22.7g/t from 42m; 1m at 31.9g/t from 31m; and 1m at 5.67g/t from 92m.
NW Breccia is largely untested and located within an interpreted north-northwest trending structural zone which crosscuts the main Fountain Head anticline and contains the high-grade Tally Ho lode.
The zone has been mapped from aeromagnetic data and field observations as trending from PNX’s Glencoe deposit, 3km to the north, which has a mineral resource estimate of 2.1Mt at 1.2g/t gold for 79,000oz.
Banner is located approximately 600m northwest of the Fountain Head resource estimate where historic deep drilling by PNX and other explorers has produced results of 6m at 39.5g/t gold from 54m; 1m at 10.88g/t from 28m; 19m at 2.7g/t from 66m; 1m at 6.71g/t from 46m; 1m at 5.43g/t from 15m; 4m at 1.90g/t from 11m; and 1m at 7.9g/t from 45m.
PNX said near-surface bedrock anomalism and deeper drill intersections over a 500m strike extent at Banner would be subject to further testing and assessment.