Brightstar Resources Limited (ASX: BTR) has recommenced resource definition and brownfields exploration drilling at the Menzies Gold Project in Western Australia.
“We are excited to commence drilling at several locations in our Menzies Gold Project. At Lady Irene, we are following up some amazing hits including a 39m intercept, whilst at Aspacia we are looking to build confidence in our geological model which suggests the high- grade 30g/t Aspacia lode features repetitions both in the hanging-wall and immediately to the south of Aspacia. Aspacia presents an opportunity to delineate high-grade, near surface ounces,” Managing Director, Alex Rovira, said.
“We are also following up some prospective geology and high-grade mineralization between the Lady Shenton and Lady Harriet mines in the ‘link zone’, with three separate zones identified for follow up drilling.
“The Mineral Resources within Menzies presents a significant opportunity for Brightstar to commercialize and assist funding larger-scale development endeavours underway to create a genuine WA gold producer with meaningful scale through the existing processing infrastructure and resource base.”
Brightstar is targeting mineralized structures in and around the mines of Lady Irene and Aspacia, located approximately seven km northwest and 1.5km West of Menzies, respectively.
Historic production was recorded from Lady Irene of 6,500oz grading 4.77g/t Au (open pit production to 2001) and Aspacia of 10,731oz grading 37.1g/t Au (underground production to 1982).
In particular, Brightstar is targeting resource additions to Lady Irene, with drilling focused on +4g/t Au high grade pods and targeting mineralization intercepted in LIRD003 (39.3m @ 4.27g/t Au) to gain further information on lode geometry including strike and plunge continuity beneath the Lady Irene South Pit.
Whilst potential for underground mining strongly exists, it is envisaged that geological knowledge gained from this drill program will be utilized to target structural repetitions for future open pit resources along the Northern Trend, where Brightstar controls over seven km of essentially untested and fertile strike length between Lady Irene and Selkirk where transported cover hampered early explorers.
At Aspacia, Brightstar is targeting strike and dip extensions to the main Aspacia lode, together with defining the Aspacia West lode which was the target of underground mining in the late 1970’s. Several drill holes are targeting the Pandora lode which is interpreted to be the southern strike extension of Aspacia at surface, with potential to replicate the Aspacia lode at depth which included face grades to 150.40g/t.
Regionally, Aspacia is along the same trend as the 192koz unmined Pericles resource approximately 1.5km away, and 500m due west of Selkirk-First Hit, which recorded historic production of ~205koz (which may present an opportunity for a combined underground operation encompassing Aspacia, Selkirk, First Hit and other smaller deposits which are all within a 500m radius.
Several brownfield exploration targets, including Westralia, South Dump and Golden Dicks in the Lady Shenton-Lady Harriet ‘link zone’ will also be targeted with a small, focused RC drill campaign. These targets will be tested at the completion of resource definition drilling of Lady Irene and Aspacia with the intent of leveraging mobilization synergies with the resource definition programmes. Within the ‘link zone’, previous drilling by Kingwest and earlier explorers has identified several pods of near-surface medium-high grade oxide material, which may present opportunities for potential exploitation via open pit mining programmes.
For further information please visit: http://www.brightstarresources.com.au/
