Hamelin Gold Limited (ASX:HMG) has re-commenced an RC drilling at the Hutch’s Find and Camel prospects in the West Tanami Gold Project, Western Australia.
“The announcement on 10 October 2022 of the discovery of shallow, high grade gold mineralisation in our first drill programme at Hutch’s Find was a significant milestone for the company,” Managing Director Peter Bewick said.
“The new mineralised structure intersected in TLD0001 is open both along strike and at depth.
“Within three weeks of announcing this discovery the company has secured an RC rig and is now back drilling at Hutch’s. The exploration team has done a fantastic job to get this program going in this short timeframe and we are all very excited by the potential for the discovery of further high-grade mineralisation at this large scale gold prospect.
“RC drilling has also been planned to test the exciting Camel prospect where high grade gold mineralisation in diamond drilling and surface rock chip sampling has identified a 600m long, NW trending target zone that has seen limited previous drilling.
“The 2,500m RC drill programme will be completed by mid-November 2022 with assay results expected in early 2023”
The Hutch’s Find gold prospect is defined by a 2.5-kilometre-long regolith gold anomaly located 22 kilometres southwest of the Coyote Gold Mine. Historical exploration at the prospect is dominated by shallow RAB, aircore and RC drilling with very few localised deeper RC and diamond holes and a single wide spaced RC program completed in 2019. Hamelin recently completed an orientation program of RC drilling to provide key geological and geochemical information on the nature of the regolith and basement geology at Hutch’s.
A single east-west line of RC holes was drilled over the eastern edge of the 2.5 kilometre long gold anomaly at Hutch’s. The western five holes in the line (TLR0001 – TLR0005) were drilled at 100 metre spacing with the remaining holes on the line spaced at 200 metre increments to the east. The five western holes centred on an area where historical drilling had previously intersected high grade gold mineralisation, with a best intercept recorded of 10 metres at 5.4 g/t from 123 metres (HFDD0004).
Shallow, high grade gold mineralisation has been intersected in the western most hole drilled in the program returning: 12m at 4.50 g/t Au from 6m in TLR0001 including 6.0 metres at 8.10 g/t Au from 8.0 metres, and 2.0 metres at 1.45 g/t Au from 16 metres
RC hole TLR0001 was collared 200 metres west of HFDD0004 and is interpreted to have intersected a new, potentially steep dipping mineralised structure. The area immediately around TLR0001 was previously only drilled by 12 metre deep, 40 metre by 40 metre spaced vertical RAB holes. The historical RAB drilling outlined a subtle, discontinuous, northeast trending, 20 to 40 ppb gold anomaly beneath 4.0m of transported sand cover.
The discovery of high-grade gold in TLR0001 and historical hole HFDD0004 indicates a potentially developing high grade gold system at Hutch’s Find. These results confirm Hamelin’s belief that the systematic exploration of the belt scale West Tanami Project has the potential to deliver high grade gold discoveries in areas of previously ineffective shallow drilling.
The Camel gold prospect is defined by a two kilometre long gold and arsenic regolith anomaly located 40 kilometres west of the Coyote Gold Mine. Previous drilling at the prospect is dominated by shallow RAB and RC holes with only five holes drilled deeper than 120 metres across the prospect. Hamelin recently completed a single orientation drill traverse across Camel to assist with the interpretation of the structural and geological architecture of the prospect. Initial results from the RC and diamond drilling have confirmed the emergence of a well mineralised, depth extensive gold system at Camel.
Diamond Drilling, Surface Sampling and Airborne Magnetics
EIS co-funded diamond drill hole TSD0005 confirmed the presence of a north-west trending array of high grade gold veins within a broad zone of lower grade gold mineralisation. This trend is coincident with a 600 metre long corridor of sparce drilling where high grade surface rock chip samples were recently mapped by Hamelin.
Interpretation of data from an ultra-detailed airborne magnetics and radiometrics survey over the Camel region has allowed for a more detailed structural interpretation of the area. A series of subtle antiformal folds has been interpreted to be coincident with the Newkirk geochemical anomaly which upgrades the quality of this target. The Newkirk prospect is located 1.8 kilometres north-east of Camel and is defined as a 10-58ppb gold in LAG anomaly in an area of thin sand cover.
RC drilling has commenced at Hutch’s Find to test for down dip and along strike extensions to the high-grade gold mineralisation intersected in TLR0001. If initial observations are positive additional holes will be added to the program to test the mineralised structures at depth into fresh rock.
Following the completion of the Hutch’s drilling the RC rig will test a series of targets within the Camel region including the main north-west trending target zone and the Newkirk geochemical anomaly.
In total 2,500m of drilling is planned in the current program and it is expected to be completed by mid-November 2022. Assay results from this programme will be reported in early 2023.
For more see hamelingold.com.au