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Santana Minerals (SMI) reports bonanza gold grades

ASX News, Mining
ASX:SMI      MCAP $229.4M
23 December 2021 16:45 (AEST)

Drilling at Bendigo. Source: Santana Minerals

Santana Minerals (SMI) announced it has received bonanza drill grades in two drill holes at its Bendigo-Ophir project in New Zealand.

Best results include 13 metres at 12.06 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 192.9 metres including 57.5 g/t gold, 47.3 g/t gold, and 43.5g/t gold between 194.7 and 198.7 metres.

Another hole returned 1 metre at 15.01 g/t gold from 208 metres.

Robust gold mineralisation over 20 to 40 metre widths in three diamond drill holes was also identified.

The company said this demonstrates that the mineralisation continues at least 400 metres north-east of the intersections.

The current campaign commenced in November with 26 holes drilled for a total of 5930 metres.

This represents 66 per cent of the total 8,992 metres drilled over the four Rise and Shine Shear Zone (RSSZ) deposits.

Executive Director Dick Keevers said the company’s drilling was presently based upon bold step-outs for defining a new body of Orogenic gold mineralisation.

“Our diamond drilling at the Rise and Shine deposit has continued to intersect shear and stockwork gold mineralisation, where the frequent occurrence of free gold, often visible in the drill core, has added definition to this gently NE plunging mineralised body,” he said.

“This mineralisation, now known to extend about 400 metres further down plunge from the NE limit of the last Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE), for a total length of about 1000 metres from surface outcrop, is still open in this direction where our drilling will continue to probe for new gold in 2022.”

Next month, drilling will be to the north and east of Rise and Shine and will focus on determining the limits of the shear hosted and quart-arsenopyrite vein sets evident in the north of the project.

Shares closed Thursday trading 7.94 per cent higher at 34 cents each.

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