Aurum Resources is edging towards exploration on its Ryans Find gold project north-east of Southern Cross after completing a two-day on-site heritage clearance survey alongside the land’s traditional owners – the Marlinyu Ghoorlie Native Title Claimant Group.
Management says drilling at its deposit will be scheduled once a report from the heritage consultants, Fremantle-based Terra Rosa, has been reviewed. The report is expected to land in 30 days, but the company’s works program for the campaign has already been approved by the WA Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.
Aurum is aiming to kick off an air-core (AC) drilling program at the project before the end of next month and has pencilled in a fortnight to complete 74 holes.
Ryans Find takes in about 237 square kilometres of tenure in the historical Mt Dimer gold mining hub along the Marda-Diemals greenstone belt. Aurum says its licence package contains more than 50km of strike length across a relatively unexplored greenstone belt close to historic gold mines and workings.
Historical mining in the region includes the Mt Dimer operation where more than 8000 ounces of gold grading 3.44 grams per tonne were produced in the 1990s. A JORC-compliant resource of nearly 50,000 ounces of gold and about 90,000 ounces of silver has since been defined at Mt Dimer by its current owner, ASX-listed Twenty Seven Co.
Another ASX-listed explorer, Aurumin Limited, has also returned many stellar gold hits at several prospects near Aurum’s ground, including 5m going 19.26g/t gold, 7m at 7.55g/t gold and 4m grading 48.69g/t gold.
Ryans Find was initially explored for nickel by WMC Resources in the 1970s, but has remained largely dormant since, with little modern exploration conducted. To the north of Ryans Find, Aurum recently confirmed that its flagship Penny South gold project is also prospective for nickel, in addition to traces of silver and zinc, after a significant review of historical data in the area.
The majority of the company’s exploration at the site has been for gold as the project sits near two high-grade gold deposits currently under development by ASX-listed Ramelius Resources. Aurum’s ground is along the same shear structure hosting Ramelius’ high-grade historical Penny West open pit and the more recently-discovered Penny North underground deposit.
The remnants of the Penny West deposit lie just 510m north of Aurum’s holding and during the 1990s, it produced 85,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 21.8g/t. The Penny North underground deposit immediately north of Penny West hosts 270,000 ounces at a similarly high grade of 20g/t.
Given what has been uncovered at deposits close to both Ryans Find and Penny South, Aurum is itching to get on the rig and see what it can turn up.
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By Steve Kaless
