Breaker hits deeper high-grade gold
17 June 2020
MiningNews.net
STEP-out reconnaissance drilling at Breaker Resources’ flagship Bombora resource has intersected visible gold in core recovered below the existing one million ounce resource, with up to 67 grams per tonne, amid some of the deepest intercepts yet recorded at the Lake Roe project, 100km east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
The junior has been using a diamond rig to assess the underground mining potential below the pit shell, with signicant intersections from four holes on a 300m spacing, with several new high-grade lodes over a 1km strike within the wider 3.2km-long system. The drilling focused on the potential below 400m.
New steep lodes were intersected about 600m below surface with 4.6m at 12.5gpt, including 1.3m at 42.7gpt within a broader zone of 19.6m at 3.13gpt; and 5.7m at 5.56gpt with 2.47gpt at 12.1gpt, including 1.37m at 20gpt – all in the same hole. Additional assays from 865m to the end-of-hole at 1126m are pending.
Two new flat lodes were also defined with 2.65m at 10.6gpt from 406m, including 0.4m at 67.3gpt and 6.85m at 4.8gpt, including 1.4m at 10.9gpt. The results extend the strike length of known high-grade gold lodes below the open pit resource by 600m to 2000m, and the mineralisation remains open to the north and south.
Breaker executive chairman Tom Sanders said the results indicate the scope for a material underground resource at Bombora, beneath the “extensively de-risked open pit resources”. Sanders said the deeper high-grade lodes appeared to be similar to the high-grade shallow lodes, or were extensions of the same lodes but without a low-grade halo.
“Based on the recent drilling, some of the individual flat lode systems are in excess of 1km-long, which matches the dimension of some of the west-dipping lodes in the shallow portions of the deposit. We believe that the continuity we see in the shallow portions of the deposit is likely to translate into a viable future underground mining scenario,” Sanders said.
Earlier this month the company reported an emerging discovery at the 2km-long Kopai-Crescent area, 3km north of Bombora, with shallow diamond drilling now underway to follow up intercepts such as 4m at 4.45gpt from 84m. Maiden RC drilling is also underway at the Carbineer prospect, a 3200m by 500m oxide gold anomaly some 700m east of Bombora. Carbineer was discovered during sterilisation drilling last year.
Breaker believes it is working within a 9.6km-long gold camp with similarities to multi-lode dolerite-hosted gold deposits such as the famous Golden Mile. Shares in the junior have ranged between 9.2-42.5c over the past year and its stock was up 20% in early trade to 28c, valuing the explorer at $65 million.