New Ballarat Gold Corporation plc (NBGC) said it had found visible gold in the first three holes drilled at the Berringa gold mine within the wider joint venture (JV) project in Victoria, Australia.
DRILL PROGRAMME
Company partners Red Rock Resources plc (51.1%) and Power Metal Resources plc (49.9%) have also renewed the exploration licence covering the mine until November 2027.
NBGC’s inaugural drilling programme is designed to test for the downdip and along strike extensions of Berringa.
The three completed holes total 655.9m of the planned 1,000m, with drilling of the fourth hole BED23004 expected to start soon.
MINERALISATION
The JV said that all the holes had successfully intersected target geological formations and demonstrated visible gold within extensions of the Berringa mineralised lodes.
Drillhole BED23001 targeting South Birthday zone, intersected a 9m wide mineralised* quartz vein from 380.5 – 389.5m downhole, as well as another 0.20m mineralised* quartz vein from 421 – 421.2m downhole including minor visible gold mineralisation.
Drillhole BED23002 (Berringa Syndicate) intersected a 9.6m wide mineralised* structure from 89.2 – 98.8m which included minor visible gold mineralisation, and abundant mineralised* quartz veining from 89.2m – 94.1m and 96.5m – 98.8m downhole.
The JV is conducting core logging from drillhole BED23033 (Berringa Syndicate) where preliminary observations identified visible gold within the core.
Results are pending for the first two drillholes for which tests will use traditional fire assay and bottle roll testing.
Both methods will ensure the results capture coarse fraction gold as demonstrated by the visible gold on the drill core surface in all the completed holes.
*sulphide mineralisation including sphalerite, galena, arsenopyrite and pyrite.