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- Alderan Resources (AL8) restarts drilling at the Drum Gold Mine within its Detroit Project in western Utah, USA
- Drilling at Drum aims to confirm the presence and grade of remnant oxide gold mineralisation which Alderan has modelled from historical data
- Alderan has also received results for hole 3DD22-001 at the Mizpah deposit to test the down-dip extent of hole DD20M-006 with a peak of 0.98g/t gold encountered so far
- Verification drilling and resource modelling will now be undertaken at both Drum and Mizpah to understand the oxide gold economics
- Shares in Alderan are up a healthy 16.7 per cent on the market and are trading at 2.1 cents
Alderan Resources (AL8) has restarted drilling at the Drum Gold Mine within its Detroit Project in western Utah, USA.
Drilling at Drum aims to confirm the presence and grade of remnant oxide gold mineralisation which Alderan has modelled from historical data.
The initial hole intersected a thick oxide gold mineralised interval of 16.2 metres at 1.04 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 60.2 metres including 1.5 metres at 5.6g/t gold.
This result verifies gold grades in historical holes drilled in the East Pit and provides confidence in Alderan’s modelling of gold mineralisation left at Drum when mining stopped in 1989.
A second hole was then drilled and was designed to test the southern end of the East Pit where modelling indicates a 10 to 20-metre zone of oxide mineralisation grading more than 1g/t gold.
Samples have been sent to ALS laboratories for analysis with results expected shortly.
The drill rig is now at Site A-1 on the northwestern side of the West Pit where it will drill to the north to test down dip from in-pit rock samples which contained up to 10.7g/t gold.
Alderan has also received results for hole 3DD22-001 at the Mizpah deposit to test the down-dip extent of hole DD20M-006 that intersected 83 metres at 0.41g/t gold from 35.8 metres including 6.9 metres at 1.98g/t gold.
Assays from hole 3DD22-001 range up to 0.98g/t gold and results suggest that the gold mineralisation at Mizpah could extend for a further 350 metres down dip than the current 350 metres.
Verification drilling and resource modelling will now be undertaken at both Drum and Mizpah to understand the oxide gold economics.
“Drum is clearly a high potential oxide gold deposit. Historical drill holes have thick high-grade gold intersections such as 23 metres at 5.0g/t gold, individual drill sample assays grade up to 39g/t gold, the deposit is open and the potential for primary gold mineralisation below the oxide horizon has never been tested,” Managing Director Scott Caithness said.
“It is also exciting to see the highly anomalous gold in the bold step-out hole 3DD22-001 at Mizpah as it suggests that the mineralised system could be much larger than modelled from historical drilling.
“Further resource modelling to understand the economics of a potential oxide gold mine development at Drum and Mizpah is also an important next step as it will help set targets and guide the deposit evaluation process.”
Shares in Alderan were up a healthy 16.7 per cent on the market and were trading at 2.1 cents at 2:26 pm AEDT.
