Venus Metals and Rox Resources make bonanza hits at Youanmi South gold project
Rox Resources has entered a joint venture with Venus Metals to acquire up to a 70% stake in the Youanmi gold mine.
Venus Metals (ASX: VMC) and its joint venture partner Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) have made a series of bonanza hits during drilling at the Youanmi South gold project in Western Australia.
A best reported intercept of 28 metres grading 34.81 grams per tonne gold was encountered in the first of a series of reverse circulation and diamond drill holes to test a range of structural trends.
Other gold results were 18m at 51.96g/t from 207m, including 10m at 79.55g/t from 211m, including 3m at 138.07g/t from 218m.
True widths are currently unconstrained, and follow-up drilling has been planned to determine the orientation and dip direction of the discovery.
Exciting development
Rox managing director Robert Ryan said the results have been an exciting development.
“This opens up a new near-mine area for exploration and potential high-grade resource growth … it is cause for cautious optimism while we determine orientation of the mineralised zone,” he said.
“We are confident that Youanmi is a large-scale, high-grade system, which is still in the early stages of understanding and resource evaluation.”
Limited exploration
Youanmi South is located 250m from the Youanmi main open pit in an area of limited shallow historic exploration.
The early-stage results have opened up an area of largely untested mafic volcanic rocks at depth for potential resource growth.
It is believed to add confidence in the project’s exploration upside through delivery of the first substantial intercept east of the main lode.
Midway structure
Venus and Rox have also identified a number of near-mine exploration targets with new drill results at the high-grade Midway structure located near to the Youanmi main pit.
The structure has an interpreted strike length of more than 1,000m, of which only 100m has been tested to date.
Data interpretation is reported to be in its infancy, with the partners prioritising the understanding of splay structures off the Youanmi main zone to the west (Midway) and east (Youanmi South), with the aim of identifying new high-grade structures with strike continuity.
Recent results from Midway have highlighted the significance of structural splays off the main lode, which have rapidly become an exploration priority.