Mantle Minerals Ltd (ASX:MTL) has wrapped up its maiden drilling program at Mt Berghaus in Western Australia, with a campaign which sought to define key geological features of the project – in particular those with potential connections to De Grey Mining Ltd (ASX:DEG)’s Hemi discovery to the south.
The campaign comprised 126 holes of drilling for a total of 7,357 metres, testing the intersections of interpreted structures and stratigraphy at Mt Berghaus, south of Port Hedland.
Assays from the exploration work are due in July, and Mantle is hoping to find coincident gold mineralisation and arsenic which can be followed up with reverse circulation (RC) drilling at deeper levels.
Guidance on this has also come from what is known about the 12.7-million-ounce Hemi, which was discovered through RC drilling below aircore drilling: with the shallower work picking up grades as low as 0.2 grams per tonne of gold, while the intersections from deeper RC work picked up grades of 2 grams per tonne.
Mantle has already found mineralisation consistent with that of Hemi – that is, intersections of gold and arsenic – on its Roberts Hill tenements, but with the recent granting of tenements at Mt Berghaus to the east, the company is focusing on being potentially the first to drill this area.
RC drilling will be carried out at both tenements later on this year.
Mantle has been trading at 0.2 cents.