S2 Resources Ltd (ASX: S2R) has discovered a new gold mineralised trend to the east of its 100% owned Aarnivalkea gold prospect in northern Finland.
The discovery was made during recent base of till (BOT) drilling which was undertaken in lieu of planned extensional diamond drilling at Aarnivalkea, which could not proceed due to unusually warm conditions in the arctic preventing the ground from freezing and restricting rig access in swampy areas.
Managing Director and CEO, Mark Bennett,said the new BOT anomaly is largely located on a gentle rise which can be drilled year-round, and diamond drilling to test this is planned to commence as soon as possible.
The reconnaissance BOT drilling, which was undertaken two km from Aarnivalkea gold prospect to test beneath an ionic leach gold anomaly, identified a 1.2 km long north-south striking zone of strongly altered and deformed bedrock with associated strong gold, arsenic, antimony and copper anomalism.
The bedrock in this zone comprises strongly sheared and sericite, silica, carbonate, sulphide altered greenstones with quartz-arsenopyrite veining.
Numerous samples grade greater than 0.5 g/t gold, with a peak value of 4.3 g/t gold, and these have associated anomalous arsenic, antinomy and copper pathfinder elements. This corridor is open along strike to the south.
Mr Bennett said it is likely that the southern extension of this corridor has been terminated by a late fault and displaced 1.5 km to the northeast, where another line of reconnaissance BOT drilling has intersected gossanous quartz assaying 10.7g/t gold together with a similar suite of pathfinder elements.
BOT drilling is ongoing with the aim of further defining the extent of this new trend and its potential fault- offset continuation, and a diamond rig has been sourced to commence drilling in mid-March.
BOT drilling retrieves a single end of hole sample at the interface between the base of the glacial till and the subjacent bedrock, and is essentially a way of collecting rockchip samples from beneath the transported cover.
