Calidus Resources Limited (ASX:CAI) has obtained more strong drilling results at its Felix gold discovery in the Pilbara.
The company said the results support its strategy to grow the inventory, production and mine life at its Warrawoona Gold Project by defining and developing deposits within trucking distance of Warrawoona.
The drilling programme was designed to follow up on initial results, by testing the potential for Felix to host a shallow Mineral Resource which would be amenable to open pit mining. The first round of scout drilling proved the presence of widespread, shallow mineralisation at Felix.
Results from the latest drilling campaign have demonstrated the geometry of the mineralised horizons and their strike continuity. This was an important step because there was no previous drilling or substantive exploration work in the Felix area.
These results support the prospect of Felix becoming a source of ore for Warrawoona, enabling us to increase mine life and leverage the infrastructure,” Managing Director, Dave Reeves, said.
“The results will be used, in conjunction with the results from a soil sampling program currently underway, to plan the next stage of drilling to determine the likelihood of a Mineral Resource amenable to open pit mining.
“At Marble Bar, planned drilling is designed to test the thickness and grade continuity of a high-grade portion of the quartz reef and to test down-dip and along-strike extensions of the reef that are currently open. Results from the program will be used to test the potential for high-grade ore feed for Warrawoona, which is only 25km away”.
Felix
The Felix prospect was first identified from a programme of scout drilling on E46/10261,2 following up on a zone of strong gold-in-soil anomalism defined over >three km strike length along the Blue Spec Fault Zone.
Exploration Licence E46/1026 is located about 11km ENE of the township of Nullagine, in the east Pilbara region. The tenement is considered prospective for mineralisation like that at the Blue Spec mine, which is less than 5km to the east of E46/1026. The absence of any historic stream sediment and soil sampling and drilling on E46/1026 means that the potential of the tenement is effectively untested. Furthermore, there is no evidence of any prospecting activity, modern or historic, in the area.
The Blue Spec Project lies within metasedimentary rocks of the Archean Mosquito Creek Basin. Gold deposits across the basin largely consist of quartz-vein hosted gold–antimony mineralisation associated with flexures or oblique cross- cutting structures of the main E- to ENE-trending shear zones. The deposits at Blue Spec and Gold Spec, immediately east of E46/1026, are very high-grade, narrow quartz lodes.
The results of a Feasibility Study on the Blue Spec and Gold Spec deposits were released on the 29 September 20224.
Planned exploration programme
Felix
A second-stage soil sampling programme at Felix has just been completed. About 800 samples were collected and analysed on site using the Portable PPB process, following its successful use in 20223. The programme consisted of infill lines along a nearly six km length of the Blue Spec Fault Zone to a 40-50m line spacing with samples every 20m along the lines. This will allow for a better definition of the magnitude and strike extent of soil anomalies and will be used to inform future infill RC drilling and for the nearly two km of the Blue Spec Fault Zone, west of the area covered by the 2022 scout drilling, which is yet to be drill tested.
Soil sampling will also cover an area of hematite and carbonate alteration coincident with quartz–ankerite veins recently identified about 2.5km north of Felix.
