Western Mines extends Jasper Hill gold project with new tenement acquisition
Western Mines Group has been granted a tenement covering its Jasper Hill gold project and has pegged a nearby area.
Exploration company Western Mines Group (ASX: WMG) has completed the the acquisition of an additional tenement to expand its acreage at the Jasper Hill gold project, southeast of Laverton in Western Australia.
The company has finalised the payment consideration of $50,000 cash, 350,000 shares and 700,000 options over the shares and granted a 1% net smelter royalty to vendors Thomas Williams and Neelesh Bhasin.
The new tenement is contiguous to the project and comprises an extension to a 3km known mineralised gold trend, which has been largely held in private ownership over the last 30 years and is significantly underexplored.
It contains a number of robust gold results from shallow drilling in the 1980s, with highlights of 14 metres at 1.58 grams per tonne gold from 14m, including 2m at 8.1g/t from 16m; 13m at 1.44g/t gold from 15m, including 5m at 3.11g/t from 15m; and 18m at 1.28g/t gold from 14m, including 4m at 3.35g/t from 14m.
Minimal follow-up exploration has been conducted since then.
Strong holding
Managing director Caedmon Marriott said the acquisition gives Western Mines a strong holding over the Merolia greenstone belt.
“This is an exciting piece of ground that consolidates our project area over a known mineralised gold trend which has previously only been lightly drilled,” he said.
“There are some very interesting and robust shallow intersections of gold over broad widths, some of which show higher grade portions … these have seen no real follow-up work since the 1980s.”
He said the company had planned a site visit in the next few weeks to commence ground work and preparations for initial drilling in the first half of the new year.
Project location
The Jasper Hill project lies approximately 50km from Western Mines’ Rock of Ages gold project.
The project area is only lightly explored due to being partly under shallow cover, but is contiguous to the Lord Byron and Fish mines which produced from 2010 to 2012 and had a combined remaining resource of 156,000 ounces at 1.9g/t gold when sold into private ownership in 2019.
The Merolia greenstone belt sequence of ultramafic and mafics, banded iron formations and ferruginous chert hosting the Lord Byron deposit extends into the southern portion of the newly-acquired tenement.