Meeka Metals has reported strong oxide gold mineralisation from shallow drilling of a new area of its St Anne’s deposit of the company’s Murchison gold project, north-east of Meekatharra.
The campaign’s highlights include 16 metres at 3.48 grams per tonne from 48m, including 8m going 6.17 g/t gold and 12m at 2.48 g/t gold from 76m including 8m grading 3.55 g/t gold.
Meeka has decided to continue the golfing theme calling the new lode, about 100m to the east of Driver, the Wood lode. It is located on the contact between the mafic and sedimentary units and dips shallowly to the east.
The company says Wood remains open to the north, south and at depth. Moreover, drilling is continuing and assays from another 25 shallow strike extension holes to the north and south are pending.
Wood is the first of a number of targets to be tested outside of Meeka’s Driver and Iron lodes, which sit on the western mafic contact at St Anne’s and where drilling has been underway since June 2022. The Iron lode is south of both Driver and Wood.
Assays are also pending for a further 43 shallow strike extension holes at Driver. Meeka also reports its diamond drilling is continuing well and all six completed holes have intersected the target shear zone with intervals of sulphides and quartz marking the lode position.
Core processing is underway with first assay results from the diamond holes expected in December 2022.
Meeka Metals Managing Director Tim Davidson said: “The ongoing shallow drilling at St Anne’s continues to expand the footprint of high-grade oxide mineralisation within this large gold system.”
“This positive early result from the first target in our broader, but disciplined, target testing program highlights the growth opportunity available at our Murchison gold project.”
It is Meeka’s rare earth deposits in the south of Western Australia that have grabbed most of the attention in recent times. Indeed, the growing importance of the rare earths prompted a name change from Meeka Gold to Meeka Metals in July this year.
News from St Anne’s drilling, however, has pivoted the focus back towards Meeka’s flagship Murchison gold project – a combined 343 square kilometre landholding which hosts a 1.1-million-ounce mineral resource.
A scoping study last year delivered a mine with an 8-year life, producing 4.9 million tonnes at 2.8 g/t for 443,000 ounces gold and a pre-feasibility study is scheduled before the end of the year.
Meeka has stated one of its key focuses is to grow the Murchison project’s mineral resource and continuing high-grade assay results from St Anne’s will do that ambition no harm at all.
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By Matt Birney
