ASX-listed junior gold explorer Torian Resources has picked up a couple of encouraging gold sniffs from a round of regional reconnaissance drilling at the “Diorite Block” section of its flagship Mt Stirling gold project about 40km north-west of Leonora in WA. The Perth-based company put down 21 reverse circulation holes for an aggregate coverage of 2,683m across Diorite. The program produced better intersections of 1m at an average grade of 4.66 grams per tonne gold from 109m at the “Unexpected Mine” prospect and 1m at 2.19 g/t from 8m at Diorite East.
Torian recently released an updated mineral resource statement for the project’s namesake Mt Stirling deposit of 2.05 million tonnes grading an average 1.54 g/t for 101,722 ounces of contained gold.
There is also an additional inferred resource of 253,500 tonnes at 2.01 g/t for 16,384 ounces of contained gold at the nearby Stirling Well deposit.
Both deposits sit within Mt Stirling’s “Stirling Block”.
Further south at the contiguous Diorite Block, the headline 1m at 4.66 g/t intercept perforated primary mineralisation and was returned from beneath the historical Unexpected Mine workings in Diorite North.
The company is looking to kick off follow-up RC drilling at Unexpected this week aimed at testing for strike extensions and the continuity and plunge of gold mineralisation.
According to Torian, a new target zone of about 460m long has been unearthed at the Diorite East prospect by the drilling work.
Diorite East shares structural and geological similarities to the Mt Stirling-Viserion structural setting in that both are north-west-south-east trending shear zones situated sub-parallel to the regionally significant Ursus fault.
Torian says the potential for gold mineralisation to extend between and beyond recorded pierce points at Diorite East warrants further RC drill testing.
Planned follow-up drilling will test for strike extensions and down-dip continuity of the mineralisation along an interpreted shallow target zone.
The company has also carried out structural mapping and surface portable XRF assay work at several prospective historical and conceptual areas of interest at Diorite.
Torian Resources Executive Director Peretz Schapiro said: “As this campaign was essentially greenfield exploration, we are highly encouraged that we have uncovered a number of structures and gold intercepts that warrant follow up drilling. We are excited to further progress the exploration of the Diorite Block with another RC drilling campaign which is scheduled to begin this week.”
Torian has previously indicated it intends churning out a total of 50,000m of brownfields and greenfields auger, RC and diamond drilling across the Mt Stirling project area’s Stirling and Diorite blocks this year that it hopes can build on its 118,000-ounce gold resource base.
About 14 million ounces of gold have been produced from mines such as Tower Hills, Sons of Gwalia, Thunderbox, Harbour Lights and Gwalia in the fertile Leonora gold province.
Mt Stirling also sits within striking distance of Red 5’s developing 4.1-million-ounce King of the Hills gold project, whilst the Diorite Block in the southern half of the project tenure takes in the historically rich Diorite King gold mine.
According to mindat.org, old timers eked out 1,134 tonnes of ore from Diorite King that yielded a spectacular grade averaging a reported 73 g/t gold to produce 2,800 ounces of gold from 1897 to 1922.
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By Matt Birney
