Siren Gold Limited (ASX: SNG) had announced the Maiden Mineral Resource Estimates (MRE) for the Alexander River Project in New Zealand.
Highlights
• Maiden Alexander River Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 1Mt @ 4.1g/t Au for 131koz at a 1.5g/t cut-off and 35g/t top-cap. The MRE has been depleted for historic mining.
• The McVicar West Shoot contains 50% of the MRE, with an average grade of 5.3g/t Au when a top-cap of 35g/t Au is used (i.e. 1m tonnes of gold composites capped to a maximum of 35g/t Au in the MRE). The McVicar West Shoot contains diamond drillhole AX84, which intersected 2.5m @ 358g/t Au. The 35g/t top-cap has had a significant impact on the average grade of the McVicar West Shoot. If a top-cap of 200g/t Au is used the average de-clustered and capped mean grade increases from 5.4g/t to ~8.3g/t (>50% increase).
• Given the style of deposit, it is likely that further infill drilling may present additional high-grade samples and will help assess whether these values are true outliers, or a higher-grade sub-population (sub-domain). In the latter case, top-cuts upwards of 50–200g/t Au may be considered appropriate.
• The reported Mineral Resource was depleted for historical mining and constrained at depth by the available drillhole spacing, nominally 260m below surface topography. AX87 was the last hole included in the MRE. AX89 (2.3m @ 10.2g/t Au), that extended the McVicar West Shoot a further 100m down plunge, is not included.
• If the Loftus-McKay, McVicar West and Bull West shoots extend for 1,500m (-500mRL) and are similar to the McVicar West Shoot then Siren considers that the Alexander River Exploration Target of 500-700koz @ 5-7g/t Au inclusive of the Inferred resource, is still valid. The nearby Blackwater shoots extend to 2,400m and are open at depth.
Background
The Reefton Goldfield in the South Island of New Zealand was discovered in 1866 and produced +2M oz of gold at an average recovered grade of 16g/t from 84 historic mines.
Most underground mining ceased by 1942, with the famous Blackwater mine closing in 1951 when the shaft failed after producing ~740koz of gold down to 710m and below surface. Surface drilling has extended the mineralisation to 1,500m below surface (2,400m down plunge) and is open at depth.
The Reefton Goldfield was originally part of the Lachlan Fold Belt that contains the Victorian Goldfields. There are two distinctive sub-types of orogenic gold mineralisation in Victoria. The deeper (6-12kms) mesothermal deposits that formed almost all the significant gold deposits in the Bendigo and Stawell zones and the shallower.
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