Middle Island Resources Limited (ASX: MDI) has identified a potentially significant new gold target at the company’s 100%-owned Sandstone gold project in central Western Australia.
Managing Director, Rick Yeates, said the new Tailings South gold target, located only 800m south of the company’s gold processing plant, was discovered by a recently completed, interface (palaeo-surface) aircore geochemical drilling programme.
The composite Tailings South gold anomaly, located beneath 8-15m of transported sheetwash cover, comprises a 600m-long eastern element (to a maximum 107ppb Au) and a 300m-long western element (to a maximum 51ppb Au), both of which are north trending.
Mr Yeates said this is consistent with the interpreted major structural orientation, but oblique to the stratigraphic orientation at this point.
The anomaly, originally identified by a Weights of Evidence (WoE) structural targeting study completed in 2017, is interpreted to be associated with a series of folded banded iron formations (BIFs) dislocated by faulting.
Middle Island has also reported that around 11,000m of the planned 12,300m Phase I, multi-rig, RC programme at Sandstone has been completed, with all assay results of which are still pending.
The Phase I RC programme is anticipated to be completed next week, with 12 of the 14 targets and deposits tested to date.
The new Tailings South prospect will be the last target to be RC drill tested as part of the Phase I programme.
Mr Yeates said that while assays will ultimately confirm their significance or otherwise, visual logging of the RC chips has identified broad zones of quartz veining, associated with intense silica-pyrite-haematite alteration, providing considerable encouragement that at least one new gold deposit may have been identified by the RC drilling campaign to date and that most of the existing deposits are likely to be extended and/or enhanced.
Once all Phase I RC results have been received and compiled, a planned Phase II RC drilling programme, comprising a notional 3000m, will be undertaken to infill and upgrade any Inferred Mineral Resources identified by the Phase I work to an Indicated Mineral Resource classification.
This will be undertaken simultaneously with a notional 800m of oxide diamond coring of new deposits to provide additional bulk density data, along with material for further metallurgical, geotechnical and waste classification testing, where required.
Additional Mineral Resources derived from the entire planned 17,900m drilling campaign will be applied to the pre-feasibility study (PFS), which is in the process of being updated. The PFS update is planned to be completed in mid-2020, informing any subsequent Sandstone gold project recommissioning decision.
Mr Yeates said that subject to available finance, and pending a positive PFS outcome, any recommissioning timeframe is estimated to be five months, meaning the project could conceivably be in production by early 2021.
