Augustus wraps up drilling at emerging WA gold discovery

Augustus Minerals has completed a follow-up phase two reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign at its Clifton East prospect in the company’s Music Well gold project, 35km north of Leonora in WA’s gold-rich Leonora-Laverton greenstone belt.

The company has wrapped up the 11-hole, 1650m RC drilling program, designed to build on the success of its maiden phase one campaign in March. The latest drilling sought to infill between previous drilling lines and extend mineralisation deeper into fresh rock. Assays have been submitted to the laboratory in Kalgoorlie and results are expected within six weeks.

The previous March drilling delivered a raft of encouraging long mineralised intercepts from 4m composite samples, which inspired the recently completed follow-up campaign.

Notable results from that maiden campaign included 16m at 1.46g/t gold from 28m, including 12m assaying 1.91g/t gold in the best hole, 12m at 0.80g/t gold from 68m in a second hole, and a hefty 32m at 0.90g/t gold from 40m, in in a third hole, which included 4m at 2.72g/t gold.

In a move that could generate a bit of near-term news flow, Augustus says one-metre re-split samples from its phase one four-metre composite samples have been sent for fire assay, with results expected back in the next fortnight.

The company’s drilling at Clifton East has targeted a 1.2-kilometre-long soil gold anomaly that was first outlined by surface soil geochemical sampling in October and was supported by high-grade surface rock chips.

The latest drilling was undertaken using a relatively detailed hole pattern along a 400m northeast-trending strike length, with drill lines spaced at 40m and 80m intervals. The company expects that its May program will better define the continuity of the mineralisation.

The Music Well project sits in what can only be described as elephant country for gold. The Leonora-Laverton district boasts a gold endowment of more than 28 million ounces, as evidenced by a string of major operating mines in the immediate neighbourhood.

These include Northern Star’s Darlot gold mine, about 12km to the north and its Thunderbox operation, 20km to the west. Genesis Minerals’ Leonora gold camp, incorporating the Gwalia mine, lies 30km to the southwest.

Geologically, management sees strong similarities between the setting at Clifton East and the Golden Cities group of deposits, 50km north of Kalgoorlie, which is one of the largest granite-hosted Archaean gold systems in Australia, with a resource of 1.4 million ounces.

The company has identified sanukitoid-type mafic granitoids at Music Well