Zenith Minerals defines 2km-long target in premium gold country

Zenith Minerals (ASX: ZNC) has defined a “very robust” gold target at its Split Rocks project, located south of Southern Cross in Western Australia.

The company said a large-scale bedrock shear zone extending over 2km in strike by 300m down-dip has been identified. The zone’s thickness ranges from 5m to 40m and the depth extent is yet to be fully defined.

New air core drill results, with some holes intersecting mineralisation from surface, include 16m at 3.7 grams per tonne gold, 4m at 2.7g/t, 8m at 1.1g/t and 4m at 1.7g/t.

Some drilling was still in gold mineralisation at the end of hole.

RC drilling program now planned

The results came from the Dulcie laterite pit, and planning is now underway to begin reverse circulation drill testing of the area.

Zenith’s geological team has previously identified 18 targets over a 18km strike length in the northeastern section at Split Rocks.

The Dulcie laterite pit was one of those targets, and now work will continue to systematically explore each of the targets.

Split Rocks lies to the south of the 3-million-ounce Marvel Loch mine and the 2Moz Yilgarn Star deposit, and north of the 2Moz Bounty deposit.

Split Rocks covers 650sq km in the under-explored Forrestania greenstone belt.

In August, the company reported drilling intersections of high-grade, near-surface gold mineralisation including 32m at 9.4g/t at Dulcie North and 2m at 14.5g/t from the Dulcie laterite pit.

Latest results a “game changer”

Zenith chief executive officer Mick Clifford said the drill results within the near surface oxide zone provide the company with a “very robust large-scale target”.

“This recent round of drilling is a game changer, adding a further 900m of strike south of the very shallow Dulcie laterite pit to what has now become a huge gold target,” he added.

Zenith chairman Peter Bird said this latest development adds significant scale to Zenith’s wholly-owned precious metals portfolio.

“Split Rocks is just one of the four wholly-owned precious and base metals assets we are planning to drill or further evaluate this current quarter,” he said.

“I really feel there is plenty of news to come.”

Previous drilling focused on nickel

Historic drilling more than 20 years ago at Split Rocks was mainly in search of nickel and carried out at a time when the gold prices were significantly lower than today — for example, the average price in 1999 was US$278.88 per ounce (A$393/oz).

Zenith’s target study has identified several “high-order” geochemical anomalies that were either never, or poorly, drill-tested.

In addition to the gold targeting exercise, Zenith said it has also been systematically exploring Split Rocks for lithium.

Split Rocks is located 10km northwest of the Mt Holland pegmatite project, 50:50 owned by Wesfarmers (ASX: WES) and Chile’s SQM.