As the price of gold continues to recover lost territory, Surefire Resources has wrapped up a five-hole diamond drilling program at the company’s Yidby gold project in the Murchison district of WA’s Mid West. The campaign was designed to reveal structural and lithological information as the explorer looks to home in on the project’s broad gold mineralisation and localised high grades. The drill core has been transported to a laboratory in WA and is currently under the geological microscope.
Yidby’s mineralised footprint has increased significantly since the project’s acquisition in mid-2020, particularly with the discovery of two new prospects announced by Surefire in late September. The project’s mineralisation zone that once spanned across a distance of 300m has now been pushed to a distance of over 1.2km. The company plunged two of its diamond drill holes into the project’s original site that has produced historical intercepts including 3m running 26.5 grams per tonne gold from 150m within a broader 44m interval going 2.77 grams per tonne from 148m.
The remaining three holes were sunk to the north-west as follow-up to Surefire’s recent RC drill work that encountered broad zones of mineralisation including 60m at 1.04 g/t from 32m and localised high-grades including 4m going 10.4 g/t from 72m.
The Yidby gold deposit is considered a ‘blind discovery’ as the area is covered by up to 20m of barren transported overburden that overlies and masks the gold mineralisation. So far Surefire has drilled 81 RC and diamond drill holes at the project for nearly 10,000m of drilling.
In terms of gold, Yidby is not short on notable neighbours.
Several gold deposits surround the project, including the 1.1-million-ounce Minjar gold project 65km to the north-west, the one-million-ounce Kirklocka gold project 70km to the north-east, the sizeable 2.1-million-ounce Mount Gibson gold project 30km to the south and the 540,000-ounce Rothsay gold project 30km to the west.
The US Geological Survey reports 3000 tonnes of gold was produced last year and pegs Australia as the world’s second-biggest producer with a total of 330 tonnes, outgunned only by China and its 370-tonne-haul for the year.
Going one step further, Australia’s authoritative geological body, Geoscience Australia says in 2018 two-thirds of the nation’s gold came from Western Australia where Surefire is a player with its project in the Murchison region.
Any extra ounces Surefire can uncover from beneath the barren overburden will surely be welcome as the price of the precious metal appears to have reclaimed significant territory since the start of the month. Gold dipped below US$1620 per ounce on November 03 and has since climbed back to above US$1770 today.
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By Matt Birney
