Oar Resources has grown its Douglas Canyon gold project in Nevada by more than 60 per cent, as diamond drilling recommences to test mineralisation that previously yielded gold hits at 18 grams per tonne gold and 398 parts per million silver.
According to the company, the drilling contractor has successfully re-entered a hole with known elevated gold values. Whilst the re-entry has intersected some geologically encouraging observations, sampling to date has not returned gold assays above 1 gram per tonne.
Oar said it was focusing on maximising the amount of recovered core for analysis and was therefore taking a steady, cautious approach to drilling, given the fractured nature of the Douglas Canyon geology.
It said assay results to date from the exploration have shown elevated gold values and indicate potential plunge components or cross-cutting structures responsible for the mineralisation identified at surface.
Oar has staked more ground to the immediate west of its Nevada holdings, adding around 250 square kilometres for a total of almost 650 square kilometres, a 67 per cent increase.
Closer to home, the company has also been active at its Crown nickel copper PGE group project in the hot Julimar province northeast of Perth, with more landholder access agreements underway.
It said once confirmed, the new acreage will open the north-eastern area of the high-profile region for detailed systematic mapping and soil geochemistry.
So far Oar has identified two play types – the Western Domain, that is dominated by granitic lithologies and is interpreted as being less prospective and the Eastern Domain, characterised by a mixture of the targeted mafic, ultramafic, and granitic lithologies; that Oar said will be the focus of future exploration.
The company is waiting on results from 121 soil samples and 79 rock chip samples already sent to the lab for assay and is planning an airborne geophysical survey over the eastern portion of the project area.
Oar also flagged a review of its Oakdale graphite project in the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It has six contiguous leases of around 1500 square kilometres of the Gawler Craton on the western side of the peninsula, where previous diamond drilling had defined a JORC resource of 6.22Mt at 4.8 per cent total graphite content.
The company said management was setting boots on the ground in March to see if it could increase the existing JORC resource base whilst reassessing potential ore processing and mining options.
Ranking projects is always an ongoing process for companies with concurrently maturing projects – the next six months may well see some new JORC numbers being breathed into the Oar portfolio.
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By Matt Birney
