“A robust gold system, both long and deep, is emerging and we see substantial opportunity to grow and update the inferred mineral resource going forward,” Mark Ashcroft, Aurelius president and CEO, said in a release. “The mineralized horizons demonstrate a combination of both high-grade mineralization and sediment-hosted mineralization providing a clear path to resource growth along a near 6-km gold trend.”
An existing Aureus West inferred resource of 269,000 tonnes at 6.1 g/t gold, containing 53,200 gold oz., extends down to 150 meters; latest drilling has extended the mineralization down to 504 metres below the surface. The gold system remains open along 6 km of strike, historical trenching uncovered visible gold 5.4 km west of the 2020 drill locations.
In January, Aurelius announced results for the first three holes of the 10-hole, 4,600-metre 2020 drill program, reporting intervals such as 2.5 metres of 13.2 g/t gold and 19 metres of 1.3 g/t gold.
Aureus West is one kilometre south of the company’s past-producing and permitted Aureus East project that operated intermittently between 1868 and 2018 and includes 2,250 metres of underground workings.
This year, the company plans to drill 20,000 metres from surface and underground across the two sites to define discoveries at depth and a further 30,000 metres from surface to define and extend mineralization at the adjoining projects.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
