Ardea Resources Limited (ASX: ARL) has successfully intersected shallow gold mineralisation at the Mulga Plum project, northeast of Menzies in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.
Managing Director, Andrew Penkethman, said first-pass drilling at Mulga Plum has shown that shallow gold mineralisation appears to be associated with both flat-lying and subvertical structures throughout the historic mining area, hosted within mainly potassic altered granite.
Historic workings at Mulga Plum, including 17 shafts and shallow pits, coincide with surface gold mineralisation.
Recent and historic rock chipping highlighted locally high-grade gold mineralisation in a series of veins and strongly altered host rocks.
“Ardea is in the enviable position of having a large and highly prospective nickel and gold tenement package in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia,” Mr Penkethman said.
The Kalgoorlie Nickel Project tenements have historically been explored for near surface nickel-cobalt mineralisation but have seen limited modern and systematic exploration for gold and this represents a prime opportunity to define new gold targets. Ardea will continue to test the prospectivity of its large Eastern Goldfields land holding for gold and nickel sulphides.”
Significant intercepts from the Mulga Plum drilling to date include: 2m at 1.19 g/t gold from 20m; 2m at 2.96 g/t gold from 42m; 2m at 1.00 g/t gold from 18m; 2m at 1.25 g/t gold from 38m; 2m at 8.84 g/t gold from 14m; and 6m at 1.22 g/t gold from 10m.
Mr Penkethman said these results complement and are consistent with the historic assay results that show common surface and shallow gold mineralisation at Mulga Plum.
Ardea’s rock chip sampling returned an average grade of 1.8g/t Au in a variety of silicified rock types and veins, with maximum grade of 17.1g/t in a grey, goethitic quartz vein.
Additionally, much of the documented alteration and sulphide mineralisation seems to coincide with historically mined gold mineralisation.
Mr Penkethman said the full extent of this mineralisation and its relationships to alteration styles and structures is still being defined.