Genesis Minerals Limited (ASX: GMD) reports that ongoing Resource drilling at its Ulysses Gold Project in Western Australia is continuing to deliver outstanding results, confirming the strong potential to expand and upgrade existing Resources within the recently acquired Kookynie group of tenements.
Managing Director, Michael Fowler, said the company has received further highly-encouraging results from initial Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling at the Butterfly deposit and diamond drilling at the Butterfly and Admiral deposits.
These are highly encouraging results from both the Butterfly and Admiral deposits, which indicate a significant opportunity to expand and upgrade the existing Resources across this area to potentially underpin a single, large open pit mining operation,” Mr Fowler said.
“Drilling is continuing across the greater Ulysses Project with two RC rigs and a diamond rig operating until Christmas, with planning also well advanced for drilling in early 2021.
“We expect to deliver an updated project-wide Mineral Resource in the first quarter of 2021, which will underpin the completion of our feasibility study and provide a solid platform from which to progress the development of a significant new standalone gold mining and processing operation at Ulysses.”
The drilling was designed to confirm and upgrade zones of mineralisation that are included in the current Butterfly and Admiral Mineral Resources, as well as testing potential extensions to the Mineral Resources. Drilling was also completed for metallurgical and geotechnical test work.
The Butterfly and Admiral deposits form part of a cluster of deposits within the Ulysses-to-Orient Well structural corridor, where Genesis is currently undertaking a systematic +35,000m Resource definition and expansion drilling program.
Results from this program will feed into updated Mineral Resource estimates that will underpin the Feasibility Study on the development of a significant standalone gold operation at Ulysses, with ore to be sourced from a combination of known underground and open pit Resources.
The drilling programme at Butterfly consisted of 12 RC holes for 1,830m and three diamond holes for 467m, with drilling focused on an area covering ~300m of strike targeting the Inferred portion of the current Resource and potential extensions.
Butterfly highlights included:
- 5.17m @ 3.03 g/t Au from 121.76m
- 10.82m @ 5.22 g/t Au from 122.49m
- 5m @ 1.34 g/t Au from 102m
- 6m @ 1.41 g/t Au from 112m
- 14m @ 2.09 g/t Au from 117m
- 5m @ 1.26 g/t Au from 138m
- 6m @ 1.10 g/t Au from 113m
- 14m @ 1.54 g/t Au from 150m; and
- 2m @ 15.09 g/t Au from 175m
Drilling has confirmed the presence of strong mineralisation associated with the Butterfly dolerite unit that is also host to significant gold mineralisation at the Admiral and Clark deposits. The mineralised zones are dominated by quartz-albite-biotite+-sercite alteration zones with increased pyrite and quartz veining.
The results from the recent drilling have supported the widths and tenor of mineralisation from historical drilling and highlighted the potential to expand the current Resource both down-dip and down- plunge.
Ongoing drilling, to be completed prior to the end of CY2020, is aimed at defining higher-grade zones both inside and outside of the current Resource area, which may be associated with the quartz-rich parts of the dolerite unit.
