Aircore drilling has produced more spectacular gold assays for Zuleika Gold at its namesake project near Kalgoorlie, including a 2.13 ounces per tonne intercept over 1m at Paradigm East where the company has now completed nearly 100 drill holes for 5578m since the start of 2021.
Two parallel gold systems have been identified by wide-spaced drilling in a 2.5km-long structural corridor off the regionally significant Zuleika Shear Zone. Paradigm East is about 1.5km east of Australian gold major Northern Star Resources’ Paradigm gold mine.
Zuleika Gold says high-grade aircore drill hits over 1.8km of the 2.5km structural corridor tested so far will be the focus of follow-up deeper RC drilling. The company has drilled on a 40m-by-160m spaced grid along the 1.8km section of the east-west striking shear zone and is now closing up the spacing with infill holes.
The 1m grading 66.1 g/t – 2.13oz/t – was part of a 4m intersection going 17.5 g/t from 75m depth.
Drilling on the parallel mineralised system picked up 11m grading 3.9 g/t from 48m including 6m at 6.6 g/t.
The second-round, infill drilling that started this month has returned anomalous 4m composite intervals of more than 100 parts per billion in 13 of 29 holes reported on to date. Management said the infill holes, drilled to an average depth of 61m with some penetrating primary fresh rock, confirmed the potential of the large drilled area to host “significant gold mineralisation”.
Geological logging of drill chips from holes that have gone up to 3m into bedrock has indicated “encouraging zones of quartz veining and sericite/biotite alteration”.
Zuleika Gold Managing Director Annie Guo said: “Following completion of about 10,000m of this season’s 30,000m program, we are becoming increasingly confident of further exploration success due to the persistent presence of hydrothermal systems with anomalous gold along the Zuleika Shear and elsewhere along parallel and intersecting structures.”
“The relatively shallow initial aircore program was designed to test the existence and strike extent of anomalies evident from historical data on four prospects, namely Paradigm East, Browns Dam, Little T and Carnage. Results from this program have shown the presence of gold mineralisation on all four prospects and confirms the excellent potential of Zuleika Gold’s 230 sq.km tenement package.”
The bulk of the remaining drill program will be RC drilling initially focused on Paradigm East, Browns Dam and Credo, near the large Paddington gold mine to the east.
Ms Guo said the company would also continue to focus on new target generation along the Zuleika Shear with soil sampling and aircore drilling.
The company has a strong ground position in the world class Kalgoorlie-Kundana-Menzies gold belt and had more than A$5.8 million in the bank at the end of March this year.
Results so far from its aggressive 2021 drilling program at Zuleika and neighbouring Credo have been generating strong market interest in the company and that seems unlikely to abate any time soon given the targeting knowledge being accumulated along with the high-calibre drill results.
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By Matt Birney
