Strickland Metals has officially kicked off a new 40,000m air-core (AC) drill campaign, with a primary focus on its Horse Well gold project about 85km north-east of the Western Australian town of Wiluna.
The aim of the program is to define new shear zones and extend known shear zones further north where regional magnetic surveys suggest the structures may extend for more than 20km.
Horse Well holds a current mineral resource of 5.77 million tonnes at 1.4 grams per tonne gold for 257,000 ounces, which includes 109,000 gold ounces at the company’s Dusk ‘til Dawn deposit.
Strickland recently identified a new zinc prospect dubbed Rabbit Well on its 100 per cent-owned ground in the Earaheedy Basin. Proposed AC drilling – set to start once heritage approvals are in place – will aim to detect elevated zinc anomalisms in shallow holes. Results, along with the findings from an upcoming induced-polarisation (IP) survey, will allow for immediate follow-up diamond drilling.
Management believes Rabbit Well has the potential to be a much bigger and more coherent analogue target to its Iroquois base metal prospect. Rabbit Well sits directly along strike from Iroquois and is defined by a 2.7km-long gravity anomaly, with coincident base metal anomalism.
Following success at the nearby Millrose gold project that Strickland recently sold to neighbouring gold-mining giant Northern Star Resources, AC drilling will also begin at its Cowza prospect once heritage clearance is granted.
During drilling at Millrose last year, the company identified a banded-iron formation (BIF) that was associated with high-grade primary gold mineralisation. The majority of drilling took place on the western side of the BIF, leaving the eastern side untested where Cowza is located.
Strickland Metals chief executive officer Andrew Bray said: “The program will initially focus on mapping the Horse Well shear structures within the known mineralised envelope, while also aiming to extend them further to the north. It is expected the program will open up a substantial new corridor for follow up RC drilling to the north of the existing Horse Well Mineral Resources. Regional magnetic surveys suggest these structures may extend for over 20km to the north.”
The company raked in an initial cash deposit of $2 million from Northern Star for Millrose, before netting an additional $39 million in cash and being issued 1.5 million fully-paid ordinary shares from the high-profile buyer. Millrose sits about 40km east of Northern Star’s more than 10-million-ounce Jundee gold operation in WA’s Northern Goldfields region. The acquisition adds a mineral resource of 6 million tonnes at 1.8g/t gold for 346,000 ounces to the purchaser’s portfolio.
Strickland believes its new AC campaign will be completed by early November, with gold assays expected to be returned within six weeks and between 10 and 12 weeks for multi-element assays. An IP survey will begin next week, focussing on the company’s Great Western gold target, Rabbit Well and Iroquois.
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By Michael Philipps
