VRL drilling finds new gold trend
Intersection of supergene mineralisation supports potential for significant gold at depth and along strike
Verity Resources planning to grow and upgrade existing 154,000oz gold inferred resource at Korong and Waihi
Special Report: Preliminary scout drilling at the Triton prospect has confirmed a new mineralised trend about 5km northwest of the existing Korong resource at Verity Resources' Monument gold project in WA's Laverton district.
Shallow aircore drilling at Triton intersected bedrock gold mineralisation beneath a robust surface anomaly.
Triton aligns with historical soil geochemistry of +20ppb gold and is hosted within the same Archean greenstone terrain that underpins some of WA's most prolific gold mines.
Contact-related gold mineralisation at the prospect mirrors the mineralised architecture observed at Fred's Well, where drilling returned results such as 24m at 3.24g/t, suggesting that a structural corridor might be present.
Adding interest, the mineralisation is supergene in nature, which is indicative of dispersion from a potentially higher-grade bedrock source at depth.
Meanwhile, Verity Resources' (ASX:VRL) soil sampling at the McKenzie Well prospect has defined multiple large-scale coherent gold-in-soil anomalies, with peak values up to 96ppb gold across structurally favourable greenstone terrain.
This makes it a high priority target for drilling in the next phases.
The Monument gold project covers 232km2 about 40km west of Laverton and is directly adjacent to and along strike from Genesis Minerals' (ASX:GMD) 3.1Moz Mt Morgan project.
Monument is surrounded by notable gold players such as Genesis Minerals. Pic: VRL
Aircore drilling
The company's aircore drill program of 19 holes totalling 757m targeted surface gold anomalism from soils and rock chip samples in prospective stratigraphic positions at the Triton, Star Well and Korong West prospects.
At Triton, this drilling returned broad zones of supergene mineralisation, returning assays such as 12m at 0.2g/t gold from 20m and 4m at 0.2g/t from 24m.
This mineralisation is at a favourable stratigraphic contact between mafic volcanics and siltstone, a known control on gold deposition in the region with a setting analogous to the nearby Fred's Well prospect.
Intersecting gold within this structural-stratigraphic framework strongly supports the potential for significant mineralisation at depth and along strike.
VRL plans to carry out follow-up reverse circulation drilling to test for continuity, grade improvement and deeper, high-grade feeder zones.
While drilling at Star Well did not return significant gold intercepts, the company noted that it enhanced its understanding of the structural and lithological setting at Star Well.
Future work at Star Well will focus on defining drill-ready targets beneath the strongest surface anomalies using detailed mapping, geophysics and potentially fresh rock testing from deeper RC drilling.
Likewise, the lack of significant gold intersections did not take away from the fact that Korong West remains largely untested and highly underexplored, particularly considering its proximity to the Korong gold deposit.
Further geochemical coverage, along with geophysical reinterpretation and deeper drilling, will be considered to evaluate the full potential of this prospective structural corridor.
Prospect location plan and significant intercepts from recent aircore drilling. Pic: Verity Resources
Other activity
Over at McKenzie Well, the soil sampling outlined multiple broad and coherent gold-in-soil anomalies that cover a large area and display structural continuity.
This makes it one of the most promising untested prospects within the company's regional pipeline.
VRL noted the anomalous zones are coincident with mapped greenstone lithologies and potential structural intersections, which is indicative of a favourable setting for shear-hosted or intrusion-related gold systems.
It adds the scale and strength of the geochemical response suggest a robust gold system may be present under shallow cover.
Follow-up exploration at McKenzie Well will include infill soil sampling, detailed mapping, and aircore drill testing of the highest priority anomalies to progress the prospect to RC drilling in the next phase.
Next steps
Verity is currently focused on its resource upgrade and expansion strategy, targeting the existing 154,000oz inferred resource at Korong and Waihi.
It has engaged Environmental Resources Management to carry out a comprehensive review and validation of historical drilling data associated with the current resource.
This will determine the level of infill and twin drilling required to support a reclassification to the higher confidence indicated status.
VRL will then design a targeted drill program to infill and step out from known mineralisation along the Korong-Waihi BIF corridor, which remains largely underexplored beyond the current resource boundaries.
Following this resource-focused drill program, the company will then carry out follow-up drilling at the Triton prospect to test the depth extent and strike continuity of the newly identified mineralised trend.
It will also conduct geochemical vectoring and structural interpretation of mineralised zones to refine drill targeting, including the analysis of multi-element pathfinder suites to identify fertile gold systems.
This article was developed in collaboration with Verity Resources, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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