Tambourah Metals is eyeing extensions to the known mineralisation at its Pilbara namesake project after recent soil sampling returned up to 3.05 grams per tonne gold. The project, located 85 kilometres southwest of Marble Bar, yielded plenty of other positive samples too with 177 of the 259 soil samples collected providing potential evidence of an extension to the existing mineralised zones.
The 259 auger soil samples were collected in December of last year to test the strike continuity of known mineralisation and as a first pass over previously identified geophysical anomalies that were re-interpreted by Tambourah.
The company says new gold target zones have been identified and results also included 15 samples greater than 50 parts per billion gold and 10 samples greater than 100 parts per billion gold.
The results are significant considering that Tick Hill, which was once one of Australia’s highest grade and most profitable gold mines, reportedly discovered on a single-digit part per billion gold anomaly.
The company says the latest campaign was successful in extending the known lines of mineralisation associated with the narrow, high-grade quartz veins that host the historical workings and in increasing the prospectivity of the geophysical targets.
The region has a rich history of gold production with the Tambourah and Western Shaw mining centres being mined for the precious yellow metal around the turn of the 20th century.
The bulk of the historic production came from Western Chief and nearby World’s Fair mines. The reported total gold production from the Tambourah mining centre is about 5,247 ounces of gold.
Notably, historical drilling within Tambourah’s ground has returned significant strikes including a superb 10 metres going 10.6 grams per tonne gold with a higher-grade interval of 8.3m at 13 g/t gold. Recent drilling in 2019 that returned similar numbers gave up 10m at 5.13 g/t gold and another 9m running 5.92 g/t gold.
The collected soil samples are currently undergoing multi-element analysis.
Tambourah says the heritage survey prerequisite to drilling has been completed and the next step is to review the assays before ploughing up to 30 reverse circulation holes into the exciting targets. The junior explorer expects to be passing the rig over the project this quarter.
The priority target is a north-south zone that extends the full length of the tenement package and contains most of the historical workings. A new interpretation extends this prospective zone 4.1km to the south.
Tambourah Metals Executive Chairman, Rita Brooks said: “These soil assay results validate the geophysical interpretation at the Tambourah Goldfield. The high tenor of the soil assay results have identified new drill targets located away from the known lines of workings. This further extends exploration opportunities within the goldfield, and we look forward to commencing our proposed drill program. It was good to commence working with the Palyku Group and complete the heritage survey. We would like to thank them for their efforts”.
Tambourah has plenty of smoke at its Pilbara based project and it should not be long now before it wheels in the rotary truth diviner in search of some fire.
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