Ardea Resources Limited (ASX:ARL) has confirmed the promising “Lily Albany” gold discovery at the Aphrodite North Project in Western Australia.
Managing Director, Andrew Penkethman, said verification of mineralisation continuity from the most recent RC drill programme represents a significant milestone in Ardea’s assessment of its Goongarrie Nickel-Cobalt Project for underlying gold mineralisation.
Eight RC drill holes were completed for 2,001m on three sections 80m apart. Assay results show that gold mineralisation is continuous and open.
Ardea’s gold targeting under cover strategy has been shown to be effective in discovering orogenic gold mineralisation with the discovery of Lily Albany,” Mr Penkethman said.
“This emerging gold discovery is only 70km northwest of the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and Ardea will continue to leverage off the surrounding infrastructure to accelerate its gold strategy.
“With Ardea tenements covering 65km of strike along the major gold controlling structure, the Bardoc Tectonic Zone, multiple gold targets have been defined and will continue to be systematically explored to build upon this promising start.
“The Ardea Team are also keenly awaiting assay results from other gold targets recently drilled and look forward to providing updates on these, as information becomes available.”
Mr Penkethman said Lily Albany is the first gold discovery in the Aphrodite North area by any company.
It is located over three km east of Ardea’s 25km long line of nickel-cobalt laterite deposits that define the Goongarrie Nickel Cobalt Project (GNCP), located on one of the granted GNCP mining tenements.
“Lily Albany is a proof-of-concept discovery that resoundingly illustrates the gold fertility of the Bardoc Tectonic Zone (BTZ) within Ardea’s tenure. As per the Western Australian government’s guidelines, the discovery has been reported to the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS).”
Ardea drilled the first holes into the area earlier this year when strong gold anomalism was recognised in aircore drilling. The area was identified as a gold target following comprehensive in-house assessment, chiefly from geophysical datasets and the derived structural geological models. Prior to this, the main targets and their host structures had never been drilled.
The second round of RC drilling at Lily Albany has confirmed gold mineralisation at all depths beneath transported cover, from shallow (<40m) to deep (>200m). This indicates the continuous vertical extent characteristic of orogenic gold systems. Strike length covered by this second RC drilling program is around 160m with gold mineralisation open in most directions.
Results from the second round of drilling include:
- 10m at 3.55g/t Au from 40m, including 2m at 15.50g/t Au from 44m
- 18m at 1.07g/t Au from 216m, including 2m at 2.45g/t Au from 218m
- 10m at 1.30g/t Au from 136m, including 2m at 3.06g/t Au from 136m
- 6m at 1.68g/t Au from 246m 6m at 3.60g/t Au from 44m, including 2m at 9.99g/t Au from 44m
- 8m at 4.94g/t Au from 172m to 180m EOH, including 4m at 9.42g/t Au from 172m
- 10m at 1.52g/t Au from 76m
