The Karri Target is located 65km north-west of Bendigo, under 50-85m of
The new results, which follow the initial discovery of the gold trend under cover at the Karri Target in late 2019 (refer ASX announcement on
The Company is also pleased to announce a significant ramp-up in activities at the Project, with the impending commencement of its maiden diamond drill program, along with a trial 2D seismic survey.
Chalice's Managing Director,
'Given the scale of the target, the favourable geological setting and the tenor of the results being generated by this relatively early stage of exploration, we believe there is the potential to discover a largescale gold system at depth.'
'The Karri gold trend has a consistent north-south orientation, sub-parallel to the interpreted position of the regional scale Muckleford Fault. This structural setting is similar to many large-scale gold deposits in the
'In addition, given the location of very high-grade historical gold deposits along the Muckleford Fault to the south of the Project - such as Ballarat (14Moz @ 12g/t Au) and Maldon (2Moz @ 33g/t Au) - we believe there is the potential for similar high grades to be intersected as we drill deeper.'
'Our highly effective AC drilling program will continue throughout the current quarter, and we look forward to commencing our first diamond program and 2D seismic survey later this month to better understand the geology and structural controls, and to optimise our future drilling strategy.'
'Our strong financial position and significant in-house technical expertise positions the Company exceptionally well for the systematic exploration program ahead.'
AC drill results -
The Company's 25,000m Phase 2 reconnaissance AC drill program continues at the Karri, Ironbark North and Ironbark Targets in the Muckleford Area. The program is designed to further refine the secondary gold and pathfinder dispersion zones defined in shallow, wide-spaced vertical AC drilling in Phase 1. These dispersion zones in the weathered top of basement can be used to vector towards primary gold mineralisation in future deeper, tighter spaced drill holes.
A total of 99 Phase 2 AC drill holes for 11,000m have now been completed at the Karri Target. Encouraging new assays have now been received for 3,275m of this program, following on from the initial 4,700m released in December.
All AC holes were drilled vertically to AC blade refusal, which typically occurs at the base of the weathered
Drilling tested the projected north-south strike of the main gold trend a further 1km south of the previous drilling, with results showing the anomalous gold zone now extends over 3km in strike length and is up to 500m wide.
Encouragingly, in-fill drilling has demonstrated that the zones are likely contiguous, and all identified zones remain open along strike to the north and south.
The in-fill and step-out drilling on 500m-spaced lines has returned anomalous gold values with the better gold intersections associated with zones of quartz veining with accompanying sulphides (pyrite +/- arsenopyrite).
The gold zones are within an interbedded sequence of weathered sandstones and shales that have been variably altered (silicified) and show strongly elevated levels of arsenic (up to 220ppm), an important gold pathfinder in the region. The highly anomalous gold grades intersected are considered significant for this early stage of widespaced, vertical reconnaissance drilling into the weathered top of basement only.
Future work - drilling
20,500m of the 25,000m Phase 2 AC program has now been completed in the Muckleford Area, with assays currently pending for 3,000m of drilling at the Karri Target. Further reconnaissance AC drilling is currently underway at the Ironbark North Target, after which further step-out and in-fill AC drilling will be completed at the Karri Target on a 500m x 50m grid.
An initial diamond drill program will commence in mid-January in parallel to the ongoing Phase 2 AC drill program. One 300m deep hole is planned at each of the Karri, Ironbark North and Ironbark Targets to provide an early understanding of the local geology and structural controls. This initial information would be used to determine the optimal drilling strategy for the next phases of exploration.
Based on real-time results from these initial diamond holes, the program may be expanded. It is expected that further reconnaissance diamond drilling would follow these initial holes to systematically test each target at depth.
Future work - 2D seismic
An initial 2D high-resolution seismic survey will be completed in
The survey has been designed to image the relatively shallow part of the underlying
The 15km east-west line will extend from the western margin of the Karri Target to the eastern boundary of the Muckleford Area. As such, the line will cross the interpreted positions of the regional-scale Campbelltown, Muckleford and Sebastian Faults beneath younger
Geoscience Australia completed a crustal-scale 2D seismic transect in
Contact:
Tel: +61 8 9388 1474
Email: info@readcorporate.com.au
About the
The 100%-owned
The central Muckleford Area extends to the north-west of the high-grade historic >22Moz Bendigo Goldfield. The Mt
The 'Gold Undercover' initiative by the Victorian Government in 2006-2009 estimated a potential 32Moz (P50 mid-case) of undiscovered gold beneath
Chalice is targeting large-scale, high-grade gold discoveries under cover and is currently conducting a systematic, regional-scale greenfield exploration program. The Company is utilising all available targeting tools at its disposal, including the substantial pre-existing regional geophysics database (including crustal scale 2D seismic), regional-scale soil sampling and ground geophysics. Low-cost reconnaissance air-core (AC) drilling to the top of the target basement on wide-spaced lines is being used effectively to narrow the target search space over the very large Project area. 60,000m of this drilling has been completed to date, which has outlined 3 high priority targets within the Muckleford Area - Ironbark, Ironbark North and Karri.
Forward Looking Statements
This announcement may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively, forward-looking statements). These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this report and
Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect Company management's expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, but are not limited to, the Company's strategy, the price of
In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as 'planned', or 'will', 'would', 'followed', potential', 'anticipated' 'may', 'completed', 'impending', 'likely', 'expected', or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved or the negative of these terms or comparable terminology. By their very nature forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
Such factors may include, among others, risks related to actual results of current or planned exploration activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; changes in exploration programs based upon the results of exploration; future prices of mineral resources; possible variations in mineral resources or ore reserves, grade or recovery rates; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; movements in the share price of
Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forwardlooking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.
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