Intersects High-Grade And Free-Milling Gold In Initial Programme
Native Mineral Resources Holdings Limited (ASX: NMR) has received “extremely encouraging” results from its first field campaign at the Music Well Gold Project area located in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.
Managing Director, Blake Cannavo, said NMR has obtained results that are above expectations and confirmed the presence of both high-grade and free-milling gold at its primary target area.
Highlights of the company’s initial campaign at Music Well includes high grade gold identified in rock chip samples with one sample returning over 100 g/t Au which equates to more than three ounces of gold per ton (the sample grade is above detection limit measured by lab).
The Music Well Project is located approximately 55 km north of the town of Leonora in the eastern Goldfields. NMR acquired the two tenements (E37/1362 and E37/1363) in November 2020 and have since been exploring the potential for granite/intrusion-hosted, structurally controlled (IHSC) gold mineralisation. The latest results were obtained during the first field campaign carried out on the tenements by NMR following detailed geological assessment of the target areas in early 2021.
NMR’s exploration team is using the intrusion hosted 0.66M oz Au(total JORC Resource) Bundarra Project located less than four km from the boundary of E37/1363 as analogous to the style of mineralisation at Music Well. Much of the tenement and target structure lies under shallow cover of soil but sufficient outcrop exists to quickly define areas of interest for further investigation.
The field campaign carried out in March was aimed at exploring the tenement for prospective mineralised veins. At least two target areas are proving to be gold-bearing and exceeding expectations and will remain the focus for further investigation.
When combined, the results from NMR and previous explorers (Fairstar Resources), demonstrate that the target vein has considerable potential to become a major gold-bearing structure. Two early samples reported by Fairstar Resources of over 30g/t Au were successfully duplicated by NMR with a sample of the same part of the vein returning an exceptional grade of 45.85g/t Au.
The gold is present within the structure over a length of 275m laterally, but the full extent of the vein has not been sufficiently tested as it disappears to the north-east and south-west under a shallow cover of soil. Sporadic outcrops extend up to 700m to the south west from the target area and are interpreted as lateral extensions of the primary target vein. Accordingly, gold mineralisation may extend significantly beyond the area.
Further work is required to determine the precise width of the vein, but preliminary mapping of exposed sections indicates that the target zone is comprised of a series of parallel veins ranging from over a metre to several centimetres thick.
The results from this first-pass field campaign are highly encouraging and provide NMR’s technical team a much greater understanding of the mineralised structures within the Music Well Project area.
NMR is actively exploring the potential of granite-hosted structures as major sources of mineralisation within the Eastern Goldfields, and these latest results from Music Well will help focus the follow-up exploration programs for the project.
Mr Cannavo said that key takeaway from this initial fieldwork programme is that NMR has confirmed the mineralisation style at Music Well is similar to that of other narrow vein gold deposits. NMR has demonstrated that gold can be obtained through simple crushing and gravity separation.
Visible gold was obtained from every one of 14 large samples collected proving to NMR that gold can be accessed using gravity separation techniques. The presence of small nuggets, in sample NMRMW-BS028 assisted in confirming this style of mineralisation.
“These initial sampling results from Music Well have exceeded our expectations, and indicate the strong potential for a much larger gold bearing structure to be hosted within the project area.
We put in place a very deliberate strategy to target high-grade, narrow vein mineralisation at Music Well, and from this initial work our team has been able to prove that multiple target veins contain high-grade gold, and that the gold is, at least in part, free milling and accessible using basic gravity-based extraction techniques alone. This outstanding result provides NMR with significant options moving forward.
NMR has a busy pipeline of work planned across both our gold and copper projects and I look forward to reporting further updates in due course.”
