Dart Mining (ASX: DTM) is continuing to build faith in its gold mineral system model at the historic Rushworth project in Victoria, recording more shallow high-grade gold in diamond drilling at its Star of the West prospect.
The company has today revealed a new find of 1.2m at 4.5 grams per tonne gold from just 19.9m downhole at the site that sits some 60km north-east of Bendigo. It says phase-two drilling continued to return high-grade gold at Star of the West within the targeted Shellback Reef structures – an east-west-trending, steeply-dipping fault between the target and its Growlers Hill prospect.
Dart reports that the shallow gold-in-sulphide zone includes pyrite, cubic pyrrhotite and acicular arsenopyrite and intersects a steep south-dipping thrust fault structure that is surrounded by apparent sulphide mineralisation, forming the halo of gold results. The company believes the dominance of acicular arsenopyrite and fine-grained pyrite are recognised characteristics of sulphide mineralisation at Agnico Eagle’s nearby Fosterville Gold Mine, which is one of Australia’s most profitable pure gold mines and lies about 25km east of Bendigo.
Management says the latest drilling further validates its internal gold structures model, prompting more drill-testing across the goldfield. It is a field the company says has shown shallow historic development and has had only limited previous deeper drill-testing.
Dart’s drilling activities at Rushworth continue to be successful. By leveraging our advanced mineral systems model and in-depth structural analysis, we have effectively pinpointed highly-prospective targets. Each drillhole has consistently returned positive gold grades, reinforcing the potential of these identified structures.
Dart Mining Chairman James Chirnside
The Rushworth goldfield is focused along a series of regional east-west-orientated anticline folds that host shallow historic gold workings along a cumulative strike length of about 14km, including Dart’s Growlers prospect.
Interestingly, the east-west orientation of the field is unusual for the Victorian goldfields, which usually trends north-south. The reason the Rushworth region has added structural complexity is that it is highly-influenced by the Lachlan orocline further to the north – perhaps a reason why it has never been effectively drill-tested.
The company’s new interpretation suggests that the stacked gold reefs may also plunge southwards. The understandings arising from the phase-two drilling program will assist Dart in its phase-three testing that has already begun.
The third phase is planned to intersect the company’s Phoenix reef prospects immediately to the south of the Shellback reef structures. The Phoenix group features historic workings some 50m below surface and is one of the more extensive reef structures for the field.
Dart’s drilling is targeting interpreted deeper repeating thrust faulting below its historic and stacked Phoenix, Fletchers and Appleton’s reefs, exploited for more than 1000m of strike from surface. The company believes the complex structures could exhibit similar folding and faulting features to the nearby Fosterville Gold Mine and may also have the potential for high-grade visible gold, which is abundant at more than 5g/t at the Fosterville operation.
Management also recently had additional Star of the West exploration license applications accepted, with the new tenements progressing through advertising and native title negotiations. The ground was formerly held under a mining license by a third party.
Dart says it remains eager to further develop the Growlers Hill and Star of the West prospects as they continue to reinforce its beliefs of an untested gold system at the project.
As the diamond rigs continue to spin the rods to penetrate further into untested depth extents of the newly-confirmed complex reefs at Rushworth, the prospect of unlocking a previously misunderstood gold system is always a stirring thought … particularly in one of Australia’s highest-grade gold mining regions and immediately adjacent to perhaps the nation’s most profitable pure-gold mining operation in Fosterville.
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