Targeting Near-Surface, High-Grade Gold In WA
Great Southern Mining Limited (ASX:GSN) has commenced RC drilling underway at its Mon Ami Gold Project in Western Australia.
Chief Executive Officer Sean Gregory said the programme is targeting near-surface, high-grade mineralisation to improve open pit development potential and deeper high-grade target analogous to the nearby Ida H high-grade underground mine.
“We are now back drilling our Laverton gold projects after a short Christmas break. The drilling at Mon Ami is expected to support an upgrade to the existing Mineral Resource in the first half of 2021 as part of the potential development pathway identified. A gold mine at Mon Ami could be a useful source of cash for GSN to fund our aggressive exploration plans at depth at Mon Ami, Cox’s Find and in North Queensland,” Mr Gregory said.
The objectives of the Mon Ami drilling program are two-fold.
Firstly, to define and extend near-surface, high-grade gold mineralisation for incorporation into a targeted resource upgrade. The drill results included several near-surface high-grade hits including 11m @ 7.9 g/t gold from 26m (including 4m @ 15.9g/tgold), and 4m @ 12.4 g/t gold from 80m (4m composite sample).
Interpretation of the results has identified opportunities to extend these high-grade zones with shallow Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling, which is targeted to further improve the economics of a potential open pit development.
Mr Gregory said the Ida H deposit located 14km to the north of Mon Ami along the same regional shear zone. The long section of the Mon Ami deposit reveals a dominant northerly plunge to the mineralisation, including a 2m @ 27.5 g/t Auintersection from 173m in MLRC036. There has been no drilling directly down plunge along this trend until now.
In December 2020, nine RC holes for 1,393m were drilled at Cox’s Find and assay results are pending. A further 15 RC holes are planned to be drilled at Cox’s Find later in January 2021 to continue testing the targets identified.
Upon completion of the current Mon Ami drilling, the drill rig is planned to immediately return to Cox’s Find to complete the committed drilling which totals 5,400m across both of GSN’s Laverton gold projects.
First assay results are expected from February 2021.
Great Southern plans to complete a resource upgrade for Mon Ami in the first half of calendar year 2021 and continues to progress the other necessary technical and environmental studies to facilitate a mining approval in 2021 that contemplates processing at one of several nearby mills.
