Soil sampling is developing multiple gold targets for Aurumin
Ultra-fine soil sampling has revealed gold-in-soil anomalies that have generated several new targets on a recently acquired property along a 1.4 km long zone in the sandstone-greenstone belt. The site, which is on Aurumin’s Central Sandstone project and near its Two Mile Hill deposit, is approximately 520 km northeast of Perth, where the Company says the newly generated targets will aid in planning the next drill program.
The Ultrafine or UF technique was developed for soil particles smaller than 2 microns, such as clay and iron oxides, which have a larger surface area to bond with gold and other metals. The smaller particles can form geochemical signatures of orebodies lying many meters underground or sand. One of the main advantages of the technique is to remove quartz, a major component of soil samples that poses challenges in detection limits and reduces the nugget effect with the finer fraction.
The Company says soil sampling from its recently acquired E57/1140 property comprised 497 samples and developed six geochemical targets supported by a desktop review of historical geochemical and geophysical data completed prior to the program.
Further testing of the targets will be completed prior to the commencement of any follow-up work including mapping, infill sampling, geophysics and drilling.
Samples from the southern portion of the property have also been collected and will be submitted for analysis pending a review of the current round of results.
At the Company’s Hatton prospect, approximately 1 km east of Two Mile Hill, 59 samples were collected from the prospect. UF sampling showed strongly coincident gold and arsenic anomalies up to 99.6 ppb gold.
The anomaly coincides with a target generated from existing radiometric data.
Since acquiring the Central Sandstone project, we have taken a dual approach to both enhancing existing resources and identifying new resources. Soil sampling is an important step in a region that we believe is both prospective and underexplored.
The Explorer acquired the property from a private company in June last year after surrendering 500,000 shares along with a 1% net smelter royalty. The move increased the granted acreage on Aurumin’s 100% owned historic Central Sandstone Gold Project to 126 square kilometers.
The gold explorer is tantalizingly poised to join the magic million-ounce club after revealing 946,000 ounces of gold holdings in Washington’s Mid-West region last year. The figure comes following resource updates for the Company’s Central Sandstone deposits and the incorporation of its nearby Johnson Range project into an operation.
Aurumin officially acquired the 784,000 ounce Central Sandstone project in March 2022 after completing a $12 million cash and scrip deal with Middle Island Resources in 2021. After a successful RC campaign, Explorer was able to trap an additional 97,000 ounces at the site. The Company also increased the gold grade of the operation’s Two Mile Hill underground deposit to 1.6 g/t from 1.1 g/t.
The Johnson Range project hosts a mineral resource of 64,700 ounces grading 2.51 g/t gold and is located between Sandstone and Southern Cross.
Aurumin has enjoyed an impressive RC and diamond drilling campaign at Sandstone over the past year with a number of broad intercepts with respectable grades and it appears that 2023 could head in the same direction following these positive results.
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