Argent Minerals has uncovered high-grade gold mineralisation at its Trunkey Creek gold project in Kempfield, New South Wales.
The mineralisation was confirmed through a rock chip reconnaissance program conducted at the site in February, which returned bonanza gold grades up to 1930 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold, or 62 ounces (oz) of gold.
The Trunkey Creek mineral field extends for approximately 5.5km in length. It varies in width but is generally around 250m and can widen to 500m in some areas. Historically, the field has produced over 2900oz of gold.
The recent reconnaissance program concentrated on verifying the accuracy of historical gold workings across a 2km strike zone.
During the fieldwork program, 177 rock chip samples were collected within various lithological units, quartz veins and mined out mullock dumps. Out of the 177 samples collected, 57 rock chips returned more than 1g/t of gold, including 82.7g/t, or 2.7oz/t.
“We are extremely pleased to observe visible gold in rock chips at the Trunkey Creek project as this confirms the extremely high-grade nature of the gold mineralisation previously mined,” Argent managing director Pedro Kastellorizos said.
“To date, the mullock dump sampling has confirmed the waste material left behind is over 82 g/t gold around historical mine workings.”
Argent has also found that several discrete linear resistivity trends are evident at Trunkey Creek, which provides correlation to the historical mining operations at the site.
The company said the resistive trends may represent silica rich veins prospective for gold mineralisation.
“The detailed ground IP (induced polarisation) interpretation has clearly defined extensive high resistivity zones (potential quartz veins) and chargeability zones (potential sulphides) which have excellent potential for hosting gold mineralisation,” Kastellorizos said.
Six high-priority IP targets with correlations to historical workings have been defined for drill testing.
Alongside Trunkey Creek, Argent has other highly prospective gold projects in NSW, including Mount Dudley and Pine Ridge.
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