Iceni Gold Limited (ASX: ICL) has exposed multiple "spectacular" gold bearing quartz veinlets within a narrow, sheared basalt-interflow sediment contact in recent work conducted on the 14 Mile Well Gold Project in Western Australia
The structure has now been exposed over an approximately 20m strike length that is open and has advanced the geological model to provide a priority drill target, in addition to providing a focus for the greater Everleigh area.
Gold collected by prospectors from a crushed bulk sample of ore bearing rock, including the quartz veinlets from the sample trench, has produced a 9.5oz gold doré bar.
Managing Director, Wade Johnson, said a multi-hole diamond drill programme to evaluate the down dip position of the Christmas Gift shear is well advanced, with site prep completed and drilling to commence in the June Quarter.
“The shallow excavation and sampling activities at Christmas Gift exposing the rich gold bearing quartz veinlets within the shear zone is an exciting development for the company,” Mr Johnson said.
“The additional fieldwork has improved our knowledge of the host structure, that has advanced our understanding to further explore the Christmas Gift structure, but also provides a geological model that we can apply elsewhere in the Everleigh Well area. The strike length of the structure is open, drill sites have been prepared and we are looking forward to commencing drilling shortly to evaluate the down dip extent of the structure and rapidly advance this priority target.”
Previous high-grade rock chip assay results returned from the outcropping gold bearing veinlets included: 18,207g/t Au, 18,179g/t Au, 16,776g/t Au, 16,659g/t Au, 14,780g/t Au.
Christmas Gift is located within the Everleigh Well Target area that is central to the 14 Mile Well Project. The Everleigh area formed part of the historic Redcastle gold mining centre, renowned for its prolific gold nugget finds, which was discovered in 1894. Everleigh also contains a number of historical prospecting pits, shafts and shallow workings in additional numerous alluvial gold workings distributed over a wide area.
The Christmas Gift Prospect is located at one of the historical workings and where sampling by the company during 2023 confirmed the presence of the narrow high-grade quartz vein with abundant visible gold.
Recent exploration work by the company to better expose the gold bearing lithological unit has resulted in the discovery of further spectacular narrow quartz veinlets containing visible gold, and that has greatly enhanced the understanding of controls on the gold bearing structure. This work involved the excavation of a small sampling trench (approximately 10 metres long by 1 metre deep) along the trend, which improved the visibility of the Christmas Gift structure which trends approximately northwest and dips 55 degrees to the northeast.
This work has exposed the true nature and width of the gold bearing shear zone and has confirmed the prospectivity of the target. The Christmas Gift shear zone within the trench has an average width of between 0.8 metre and 1.0 metre, bounded by massive basalt.