Bellevue Gold (ASX: BGL) has delineated a major high-grade ore shoot in the near-mine schedule with recent infill drilling at Deacon Main in WA.
“These results replicate what the Bellevue Mine was historically known for: very high-grade gold contained in short strike structures,” Managing Director Darren Stralow said.
“With infill results significantly out-performing the Resource estimate in the area, this high-grade ore will supplement the early mine plan and ensure that we continue to see strong grade and solid production results as we ramp up to full-scale production.
“While this area has the potential to provide upside to the near-term mine plan, we’re also excited about the multiple analogous targets along the Deacon Shear which we can target with further underground drilling as drill platforms become available”.
The Deacon Shear is host to a contained ~1.4 Moz of gold in the current global Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) made up of the Deacon Main, Deacon North and Marceline work areas.
Deacon Main is one of the new areas discovered by Bellevue Gold in 2019 and forms a large component of the current Bellevue Mine plan. The orebody is situated 400m in the footwall of the historic Bellevue Mine lode with an analogous mineralisation style to the very high-grade ore shoots historically exploited where approximately 800,000 ounces was mined at ~13 g/t gold between 1987-1997.
Access to the Deacon Main orebody was established in October 2023 with the top 1058 development level completed and with stoping currently underway. The decline advance has also allowed for the development of the 1038 levels and accompanying drill access for grade control drilling which has allowed the first close spaced drilling of the deposit on 20m x 10m and 10m x 10m centres.
Infill drilling and the southern development headings have encountered a high sulphide/grade ore shoot, shallowly plunging to the southwest which was not previously defined in the 40m x 40m drill spacing. This ore shoot is analogous to the Bellevue Lode ore shoots mined in the historic mine, with up to 8m true width of massive to semi massive pyrrhotite and abundant visible gold. To date the new ore shoot has been defined over 45m of strike and 90m of plunge, averages 4m of true width at 52 g/t gold (uncut) and with high-grade mineralisation remaining open down plunge.
Of note is the area of infill drilling the recent results significantly overperforms the MRE used for mine planning. This ore shoot represents a significant accumulation of metal in a short strike length. By mid-March development has started to cut the central high-grade zone on the 1018 level.
Following a review of the intercept style, potential for another six high-grade shoots are indicated in broadly spaced drilling across the Deacon Main Lode area, both in the original exploration drilling and in recent underground. Further infill drilling of the Deacon Main target area (900m x 450m) with close spaced drilling is required to test the extents of the high-grade zones.
