Hamelin Gold Limited (ASX:HMG) has commenced drilling at the Sultan Prospect within the West Tanami project in Western Australia.
Following the announcement of the identification of these exciting new gold targets in the West Tanami less than three weeks ago, we have been successful in securing a drilling rig and have commenced drilling,” Managing Director, Peter Bewick, said.
“The generation of these gold anomalies using the CSIRO developed Ultrafine Technology in an unexplored area, under sand cover is an important development for the company. The drill testing of these targets at Sultan is the first validation of the Ultrafine technology in the West Tanami and success in this drilling program would be a major milestone for the company.”
The Sultan gold prospect is located in the northwest of the West Tanami project. Diamond drill hole, TSD0007, drilled in late 2022, intersected high grade gold mineralisation at the contact between a granitoid intrusion and a package of sediments and mafic rocks.
This hole was co-funded through the WA Government EIS programme and was the first drill hole completed along the Sultan Corridor.
Gold mineralisation in TSD0007 is hosted within a series of brecciated and deformed quartz veins with best results including: 7.6 metres at 3.2 g/t Au from 326.2 metres including 1.1 metres at 15.9 g/t Au from 329.7 metres
The Sultan Fault is a structural corridor interpreted to extend over 10 kilometres of strike and has been proven to host high grade gold mineralisation. Previous exploration along this corridor is considered ineffective and a new exploration strategy to test this undercover position was developed by the company.
Hamelin completed a series of trials and orientation surveys in 2022 and 2023 to assess a suite of analytical techniques across various soil size fractions to determine the effectiveness of soil sampling in areas of transported sand cover. The results of this research program determined that soil sampling and analysis via the CSIRO developed Ultrafine technology provided the most consistent and effective tool to detect gold anomalism within these terrains.
The first application of the soil sampling and Ultrafine analysis was conducted along a four km section of the Sultan Corridor to the west of the initial Sultan drill section.
This programme proved highly successful with the identification of two discrete gold anomalies, the Western and Central anomalies.
The Western Anomaly at Sultan is a 1,000 metre long, coherent gold anomaly approximately three kilometres west of TSD0007. The anomaly is located at an interpreted flexure in the Sultan Fault and is untested by previous drilling. The peak of the anomaly is over 30 times background and is also associated with elevated bismuth, which has been previously identified as a key pathfinder element in the Tanami Region.
The Central Anomaly at Sultan is 800 metres in strike extent and also untested by previous drilling.
A 40 hole (~3,000 metre) aircore drilling programme will be completed over the next two weeks to test the Western and Central gold anomalies at Sultan. Aircore drilling will be completed at 160 metre line spacing and 40 metre hole spacing and is designed to test the area immediately below the defined gold anomalies for regolith and bedrock gold mineralisation.