Southern Cross hits wide, high-grade gold zone at Sunday Creek
Southern Cross Gold has unearthed a 305.8m intersection at Sunday Creek grading 2.4% gold equivalent.
Exploration company Southern Cross Gold (ASX: SXG) has announced a “spectacularly wide” and high-grade intersection of gold-antimony mineralisation from a drill hole at its wholly-owned Sunday Creek project in Victoria.
The hole was originally designed to test under the Rising Sun shoot; however, mineralisation continued in a undrilled area between Rising Sun and Apollo to reveal nine separate mineralised zones with at least eight new vein sets.
The hole intersected 305.8 metres at 2.4 grams per tonne gold equivalent (1.6g/t gold and 0.5% antimony) from 319.2m.
Within the 305.8m zone, there were 12 high-grade intersections averaging more than 20g/t gold, including five at more than 100g/t gold with assays up to 181g/t gold and 9.7% antimony (196.3g/t gold equivalent) and multiple areas of visible gold.
Better intervals within the 305.8m intercept were 0.4m at 63.9g/t gold equivalent (59.8g/t gold and 2.6% antimony) from 326m; 0.3m at 49.8g/t gold equivalent (42.2g/t gold and 4.9% antimony) from 343.5m; 0.4m at 44.5g/t gold equivalent (29.6g/t gold and 9.4% antimony) from 419.2m; and 0.4m at 114.1g/t gold equivalent (100g/t gold and 8.9% antimony) from 444.8m.
Also reported were hits of 0.6m at 44.1g/t gold equivalent (43.9% gold and 0.1% antimony) from 490m; 0.3m at 196.3g/t gold equivalent (181g/t gold and 9.7% antimony) from 525.3m; and 0.3m at 41g/t gold equivalent (40.1g/t gold and 0.6% antimony) from 549.2m.
Host breccia dyke
The zone is believed to be parallel to the host breccia dyke but at a high angle to the predominant northwest high-grade mineralisation trend.
The true thickness of the mineralised interval is interpreted to be approximately 70% of the sampled thickness.
Southern Cross said only 67% of the drill hole had been assayed to date with results up to 651m downhole and the hole completed at 923.7m.
Bigger and better
Managing director Michael Hudson said the Sunday Creek project was “getting bigger and better”.
“This hole was drilled to test under the Rising Sun shoot, however the mineralisation did not stop so it was extended to these great depths to deliver what we consider to be one of the more significant greenfield discovery drill holes in Victorian gold exploration,” he said.
“Like many epizonal deposits in the region, Sunday Creek is improving with depth … the ability for the drill hole to remain within the mineralised dyke breccia host for at least 300m is perhaps indicative of a structural blowout at depth, which enormously increases its prospectivity.”