Ultrafine soil sampling results have revealed gold in soil anomalism generating several fresh targets on a recently acquired tenement along a 1.4km zone on the Sandstone Greenstone belt. The site, that sits in Aurumin’s Central Sandstone project and near its Two Mile Hill deposit lies about 520km north-east of Perth where the company says the newly generated targets will help inform planning for the next drill program.
The Ultrafine, or UF technique was developed for soil particles smaller than 2 micrometres, such as clays and iron oxides with more surface area to bind with gold and other metals. The smaller particles can form geochemical signatures of orebodies laying many metres below soil or sand. One of the main benefits of the technique is it involves removing quartz, a bulk component of soil samples that poses challenges with detection limits and reduces the nugget effect with the finer size fraction.
The company says the soil sampling work from its recently acquired tenement E57/1140 comprised of 497 samples and developed six geochemical targets which have been supported by a desktop review of historical geochemical and geophysical data undertaken prior to the program.
A further study of the targets will be undertaken prior to the commencement of any potential follow-up work including mapping, infill sampling, geophysical surveys and drilling.
Samples from the southern part of the tenement have also been collected and will be submitted for analysis pending a review of the current round of results.
The company’s Hatton Prospect, approximately 1km east of Two Mile Hill, had 59 samples taken from the prospect. The UF sampling highlighted strongly coincident gold and arsenic anomalies up to 99.6ppb gold.
The anomaly coincides with a target generated from existing radiometric data.
Aurumin Managing Director, Brad Valiukas said: "We have been maintaining a dual focussed approach since acquiring the Central Sandstone Project, to both upgrade existing resources and identify new resources. Soil sampling is an important step in a region that we believe remains both prospective and under-explored."
The explorer acquired the tenement from a private company in June last year after handing over 500,000 shares along with a one per cent net smelter royalty. The move increased the granted acreage at Aurumin’s wholly owned, historical Central Sandstone Gold Project to 126 square kilometres.
The gold explorer is tantalisingly close to joining the magic million-ounce club after revealing a gold inventory of 946,000 ounces in WA’s Mid-West region last year. The figure comes after resource updates for the company’s Central Sandstone deposits and incorporating its nearby Johnson Range project into one operation.
Aurumin officially acquired the 784,000-ounce Central Sandstone project in March, 2022 after striking a $12 million cash and scrip deal with Middle Island Resources in 2021. Following a successful RC campaign the explorer was able to include an additional 97,000 ounces at the site. The company also boosted the gold grade of the operation’s Two Mile Hill underground deposit from 1.1 grams per tonne to 1.6 g/t.
The Johnson Range project hosts a mineral resource of 64,700 ounces at a grade of 2.51 g/t gold and is located between Sandstone and Southern Cross.
Aurumin enjoyed an impressive RC and diamond drill campaign at Sandstone last year with a string of wide intercepts at respectable grades and it would appear that 2023 might be heading in the same direction after these positive results.
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By Matt Birney
