Silver Lake Resources drill results indicate new gold discovery at Aldiss
Recent drilling at the Tank South deposit returned the widest, high-grade gold intersections Silver Lake has ever reported from the Aldiss Mining Centre.
Silver Lake Resources (ASX: SLR) has announced “spectacular” gold intersections from a recent drilling campaign that points to a new gold discovery at the Aldiss Mining Centre in Western Australia’s eastern goldfields.
According to the gold producer, drilling results from the Tank South deposit included the widest, high-grade intersections the company has ever reported from Aldiss.
One drill hole returned 17m grading at 24.7 grams per tonne of gold, which Silver Lake said confirmed the potential significance of the newly discovered zone.
Other assay highlights included 24m at 9.39g/t gold, 10m at 10.1g/t gold and 31m at 4.44g.t gold.
A ‘significant exploration opportunity’
The Aldiss Mining Centre is an open pit operation located within the larger Mount Monger Camp, about 50km south-east of Kalgoorlie, WA. Commercial production from the mine was officially declared at the start of 2019.
Aldiss has been estimated to contain a measured and indicated mineral resource of 6.82 million tonnes grading at 2.1g/t gold for 452,000 ounces and an ore reserve of 2.86Mt at 2.2g/t gold for 201,000oz.
The Tank mineral resource is one of five deposits along the prospective SAT trend extending south of the Harry’s Hill and Karonie open pits within Aldiss.
In September 2018, Silver Lake completed a preliminary phase of reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling on these SAT trend deposits, with a follow-up phase completed in December to target direct extensions.
This campaign returned high-grade gold results from a hole at the southern end of the Tank deposit, which was then followed up in the most recent drilling campaign, returning the widest high-grade intersection seen at the SAT trend.
“The spectacular high-grade discovery at Tank South highlights a significant exploration opportunity for Silver Lake at the Aldiss Mining Centre, given historical reconnaissance drilling along the SAT trend is sporadic and relatively shallow,” the company stated.
Future work at Tank South will include drilling to target extensions to the high-grade mineralisation, Silver Lake said.
Immediate follow-up exploration work will comprise structural, geophysical and litho-geochemical analysis to develop robust targeting criteria for these potential extensions and offsets.
Easter Hollows potential
In Tuesday’s announcement, Silver Lake also reported further high-grade assays from drilling in the Upper Easter Hollows area of the Daisy Complex at Mount Monger.
Highlights included 1.83m at 32.6g/t gold, 0.2m at 21.4g/t gold and 3.79m at 12.4g/t gold.
“These Daisy style intersections increase Silver Lake’s confidence in the potential for the Easter Hollows area to provide a new mining front for the Daisy Complex, higher in the mine elevation and readily accessible by lateral development from existing underground workings,” the company stated.
Silver Lake is aiming to delineate a maiden mineral resource for the Easter Hollows area in the 2019 annual mineral resource update.
Drilling commences at Santa North
Meanwhile, Silver Lake said drilling has commenced to infill the high-grade zone and target extensions to plunging lodes from beneath the base of the Santa North pit, located west of Aldiss.
Santa lies close to the shallow, high-grade underground mines at Mount Belches and Silver Lake believes it has the potential to provide an additional high-grade feed source to Randalls Mill in the centre of Mount Monger.