Alto Metals has received yet another boost for its Sandstone gold project in Western Australia’s Mid West region, with first-pass RC drilling at its new Cessna prospect confirming high-grade gold mineralisation in a strike that extends to more than 3.5km and remains open in all directions.
With its Cessna assays returning a headline figure of 4m at 24.2 grams per tonne gold from 74m, management unsurprisingly says more drilling is warranted to define the nature and extent of mineralisation and to test its theory that the shallow oxide mineralisation could mean there is a much bigger gold system at depth.
Cessna sits in the Indomitable Camp of Alto’s Sandstone gold project and is about 1km south of the Indomitable prospect. Just a fortnight ago, Alto released some mouth-watering figures from drilling at its Indomitable deposit, including 16m at 13.1g/t gold from 19m that featured a 1m section going an eye-popping 112.6/t gold from 29m.
In the past year, the Indomitable Camp has extended the footprint of gold mineralisation and assay results are still outstanding from 2000m of drilling. The best figures from the latest Cessna drill holes include 16m at 7.2g/t gold from 65m, including 4m at 24.2g/t gold from 74m, and 8m at 2g/t gold from 70m, housing 1m at 11.8g/t gold.
It was the first time Cesna had been probed with RC drilling and the aim of the program was to confirm the prospect’s historical air-core (AC) drilling, which produced the headline figure of 12m at 3.1g/t gold from 60m, including 6m at 5.2g/t gold from 60m.
Successes at Sandstone recently enabled Alto to announce a significant increase to the project’s mineral resource estimate (MRE). Significantly, more than 90 per cent of the resources are within 150m of the surface and the new optimised and pit-constrained MRE of 17.6 million tonnes at 1.5g/t gold for 832,000 tonnes captures more than 80 per cent of the unconstrained MRE of 23.5 million tonnes at 1.4g/t gold for 1.05 million ounces gold.
Our planned and systematic approach to exploration at Indomitable continues to deliver and further supports our view of Indomitable being part of a much larger system. Planning for the next phase of drilling at Indomitable is well underway and intends to target the orientation of these interpreted high-grade structures within the fresh rock, including the recently announced 16m @ 13.1 g/t gold from 19m intersected in SRC918. Alto Metals managing director Matthew Bowles
Alto’s Sandstone project covers about 900 square kilometres in the east Murchison Mineral Field, about 600km north of Perth, and comprises the vast majority of the historic Archaean Sandstone Goldfield.
The Sandstone greenstone belt has an impressive gold-producing history since the first discovery of gold there at the end of the 19th century, which featured more than 1.3 million ounces of gold from various underground and open-pit mining operations. About half of that total was produced in the 15 years up to 2008 – when the gold price was far lower than today – from open-pit mining of shallow oxide ore to feed the Herald Resources-Troy Resources’ Nunngarra Mill.
Today’s price of about US$1989 (AU$2971) per ounce is close to a record high. Alto management believes that fact, plus the company’s substantial database and better understanding of regolith and the structural control on big gold deposits, gives confidence that it can achieve its goal for Sandstone of up to 5 million ounces of gold.
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