Key Highlights
• Eight-hole / 1,170m RC drilling campaign underway at the Needles Gold Project in Nevada, USA.
• Six priority targets to be drill-tested:
• Eastern Shaft - Rock-chip samples of up to 33g/t Au and 622g/t Ag proximal to a historical mine shaft.
• Tomahawk - 200m-long trend at the Tomahawk Mine, with assays up to 5.54g/t Au and 406g/t Ag.
• Arrowhead Mine - 107m-deep, 4-level mine with along-strike intersections including 3.42m @ 2.92g/t Au and 905g/t Ag.
• Arrowhead East – Two drill targets with strong arsenic pathfinder grades ranging from 1,860ppm to 6,640ppm, gold grades of up to 1.1g/t Au and silver of up to 5.5g/t Ag.
• Whopper Junior - Strong pathfinder anomalism in antimony, arsenic and mercury.
• Company expects to complete drilling within two weeks and mobilise the rig to commence drilling at its 100%- owned Red Mountain Lithium Project.
Astute Metals NL (ASX: ASE) (“ASE”, “Astute” or “the Company”) is pleased to advise that Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling has now commenced at its Needles Gold-Silver Project in Nevada, USA. A series of six high-priority vein-style gold-silver targets will be tested as part of the eight-hole campaign.
The Company has engaged experienced international drill contractor, Major Drilling Group International Inc. (“Major”), to undertake the drilling program.
Despite having significant sampling and drilling, the Needles Gold Project remains largely underexplored, with most holes only drilled to shallow depths and a number of high-grade previously undrilled prospects identified that will be tested as part of the current campaign.
Drilling is expected to be completed within two weeks, after which the rig will mobilised to the Red Mountain Lithium Project to complete further drilling in the lead up to a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate planned for the end of the calendar year.
Astute Chairman, Tony Leibowitz, said:
“The start of drilling at Needles marks the beginning of a very active phase of activity for the Company, coinciding with our imminent name change. The current drill program will test six initial high-priority prospects identified from a recent exploration review. This work has uncovered what we believe to be highly prospective discovery opportunities in gold in a richly endowed historical mining area at a very favourable time for the gold sector.
“Each of the targets has demonstrated either high-grade historical gold-silver assays or compelling anomalism for pathfinder elements, with the potential to deliver new discoveries for Astute in one of the world’s premier gold and silver mining districts.
“Once the drilling at Needles wraps up, the rig will immediately move on to the Red Mountain Lithium Project, where a major program is planned to lay the foundations for our maiden Mineral Resource Estimate by the end of the year.”
Background
The Needles Project comprises 216 unpatented lode mining claims covering an area of 18km2 and lies 92km east of the mining town of Tonopah in Nye County, Nevada, USA (Figure 6). The project was acquired due to its geological similarities with bulk-tonnage gold operations in Nevada such as the 20Moz+ Round Mountain mine8.
Previously known as the Arrowhead district, the project includes numerous historical gold-silver workings dating from the early 1900’s to 1920’s, with some of notable scale. While historical records are sparse, the Arrowhead Mine is recorded as an incline shaft to 350ft (106.7m) with drifting on four levels, and the Arrowhead Extension Mine was a 150ft (45.7m) two-compartment shaft with two working levels. These operations mined bonanza-style epithermal vein gold and silver mineralisation.
The current project area has seen a number of previous explorers including Newcrest (2002-04), Taranis Resources (2002-07), Excalibur Resources (2007-09) and Greenock Resources, amongst others. The Needles Project is hosts a large, under-explored epithermal system fertile for gold and silver, with rock chip results of up to 33g/t Au and 1,115g/t Ag3 . Existing drilling is mostly shallow, and alteration mineralogy and pathfinder geochemistry suggests that the most prospective exploration space is yet to be tested.
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About us:
About Astute Metals NL
Astute Metals NL is a diversified ASX-listed exploration company driven to create value through discovering and developing deposits of critical metals required for electrification and the global energy transition, with a principal focus on lithium and copper.
The Company is focused on rapidly advancing its recent Red Mountain Lithium Discovery, located in the battery metals capital of the US, Nevada, and exploring for world-class copper-gold deposits in the Northern Territory.
Contact details:
Matt Healy
Executive Director & CEO
[email protected]
+61 (0) 431 683 952
Nicholas Read
Media & Investor Relations
[email protected]
+61 (0) 419 929 046
