ASX-listed junior explorer Askari Metals is on the verge of kicking off a maiden round of reverse circulation drilling at its flagship Burracoppin gold project about 20km east of Merredin in Western Australia’s eastern Wheatbelt region. The company has now finalised plans for the initial 2,000m program and will be looking to follow up on a slew of historical high-grade drill results and vector in on gold mineralisation beneath a line of old artisanal mining shafts.
Perth-based Askari recently completed reconnaissance fieldwork at Burracoppin that focused on examining the shallow artisanal gold workings that it says have only been partially tested by past exploration and occur across an interpreted strike length of about 1.6km.
The company says historical holes were only drilled down to shallow depths, with the mineralisation remaining open in all directions. It will be testing for potential extensions of mineralisation both along strike and below the mining shafts that dot the project area.
The pick of the historical drill hits from Burracoppin the company has highlighted include 18m at an average grade of 5.64 grams per tonne gold from surface, 14m at 13.7 g/t from 32m and 2m at 9.1 g/t from 18m.
Rock chip sampling work done by previous owners also yielded mouth-watering gold values including 71.39 g/t, 63.97 g/t, 63.15 g/t, 41.88 g/t, 29.7 g/t and 15.1 g/t.
Burracoppin saw historical gold production between 1930 and 1974.
The shallow shafts within the project area were dug on high-grade gold veins in the 1930s.
According to Geological Survey of WA archives, the shafts were developed over gold-bearing quartz veins that generally coughed up more than 0.5 ounces to the tonne gold.
The four key shallow shafts – known as Christmas Gift, North Benbur, Benbur and Easter Gift – follow the interpreted 1.6km-long north-south trend.
Benbur ore weighed in at a spectacular average grade of 37.44 g/t gold, according to Askari.
Burracoppin lies about 25km south-west of ASX-listed major gold producer Ramelius Resources’ Edna May gold mine, which has racked up more than one million ounces in recorded production and produced 26,632 ounces in the June quarter this year.
Askari Metals Vice-President of Exploration and Geology Johan Lambrechts said: “Our inaugural RC drilling campaign has been designed to test strike extensions as well as down-dip and plunge extensions beneath the historic high-grade mining shafts. Our Burracoppin project exhibits significant exploration upside that has not been adequately drill tested by previous explorers.”
Burracoppin, underlain by poorly exposed Archaean granite-greenstone terrane that contains isolated occurrences of banded iron formation, was also the site of a small heap leach operation in the early 1990s.
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By Matt Birney
