Godolphin Resources is gearing up for the second phase of drilling at its Mount Aubrey project in the revered copper-gold Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW, as it looks to join the plethora of gold hopefuls clamouring to transform historic mothballed mining projects into lucrative money makers once again. Earlier this year, Godolphin ploughed in 14 RC drill holes at Mt Aubrey, most of which intersected epithermal-style gold mineralisation with five of them returning grades higher than one gram per tonne gold over broad intervals.
The Mt Aubrey deposit, one of Godolphin’s main projects, incorporates three backfilled shallow open pits mined in 1990 by BHP, who extracted about 120,000 tonnes of ore averaging 3.3 grams per tonne gold from an epithermal vein system.
Phase one drilling, designed to validate the historical RC drill holes and test for potential resource extensions around and beneath the old pits, appears to have confirmed low-grade epithermal mineralisation around the historical pits interspersed with higher-grade zones associated with quartz veining.
Godolphin says that both the historical and more recent drilling data show strong evidence of supergene enrichment around the quartz veins in the oxidised zone with some higher-grade intercepts in fresh rock including 3m at 3.12 g/t from 73m.
The Orange-based explorer’s predecessor, Ardea Resources, released a mineral resource estimate for Mt Aubrey last year of 1.2 million tonnes grading 1.61 g/t for 62,400 ounces of contained gold.
Godolphin Chief Executive, David Greenwood said: “The phase two drill program at Mt Aubrey will follow up on promising intersections from earlier in the year and also test new targets, previously untested, and identified from one historic and one new geophysical survey.”
According to the company, mineralisation at Mt Aubrey lies within an east-west trending quartz vein system about 6km long. Two of the more notable assays from the phase one RC holes were 22m grading 2.15 g/t gold from 22m including 6m going 7.21 g/t from 30m down-hole and 28m at 0.92 g/t gold from 60m which included 16m at 1.1 g/t Au from 72m.
Godolphin’s phase two RC drilling program that is expected to commence at the end of the month will cover an area that is about 700m long. It will involve the follow up of the phase one drill results and the testing of geophysical targets identified in a historical survey and in a recent ground magnetic survey completed by Godolphin.
Located about 50km south-east of Alkane Resources’ Tomingley gold operation which is looking to bolster production and with some encouraging early RC drill hits, Mt Aubrey is in the frame for a concerted exploration campaign now over the next few months.
In addition, the Boda discovery made by Alkane last year has put the spotlight back on the copper-gold prospectivity of the Lachlan Fold Belt and Godolphin, that was spun out of Ardea about seven months ago, boasts a lot of acreage in the region that now affords its inhabitants solid bragging rights.
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By Matt Birney
