Legacy Minerals’ accelerated exploration program at its Bauloora epithermal gold project is delivering the goods, with recent assays returning results as high as 55.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.
The same rock chip assay (5540) that delivered the 55.5g/t result also hit 444g/t silver and 239 parts per million (ppm) antimony. This was discovered at Bauloora’s Waratah prospect.
Rock chip assay 5547 at Waratah delivered 904ppm silver, while other significant findings included 5.59g/t, 4.61g/t and 4.15g/t gold intersects from assay 5628, 5510 and 4351, respectively, at the Overflow and Kelly prospects.
Legacy Minerals believes Bauloora is one of the largest epithermal-style gold-silver systems within the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, the revered gold district that also hosts epithermal deposits such as Evolution Mining’s 15-million-ounce (Moz) Cowal project.
“Legacy Minerals’ focus on a systematic approach to exploration across the project continues to deliver excellent results and the discovery of new high-grade gold bearing veins is testament to this approach,” Legacy Minerals managing director Christopher Byrne said.
“The results further confirm the low-sulphidation epithermal-style gold-silver system at Bauloora is large and well preserved, with all the hallmarks of one capable of hosting a major gold deposit.
“In addition, the quartz vein textures and pathfinder element assemblages indicate we are at the top of a low-sulphidation epithermal system with the potential to increase in width and grade with depth.”
Byrne said there had been no drilling completed at any of these newly-defined veins, with the rock chip assays and data from recent soil sampling to be incorporated into Legacy Minerals’ drill target planning.
Earlier this month, Legacy announced promising geophysical results from Bauloora, where analysis of ASTER (advanced spaceborne thermal emission) data identified nine new ‘lookalike’ hydrothermal alteration anomalies.
Other ‘smarter’ exploration techniques conducted at Bauloora include petrographic examination, which has determined the presence of sinter-related lithology over 5.6km of the project.
Sinter is a sedimentary rock primarily composed of silica that is precipitated at or near surface from hot waters at the vents of hot springs and geysers. The presence of sinter is synonymous with other operating epithermal gold mines.