TNM Drill Down: Australia tops gold assays Sept. 1–8 with Southern Cross and Musgrave

Our TNM Drill Down features highlights of the top gold assays of the past week. Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our data provider Mining Intelligence.

Results from Australia and Canada led the week from Sept. 1. Southern Cross Gold (ASX: SXG) reported almost three times more contained gold at Sunday Creek in Australia than its previous best hole. In the same country, Musgrave Minerals (ASX: MGV) said infill grade control drilling helped schedule future production at the Cue project. Meanwhile, Mayfair Gold (TSXV: MFG) made a discovery at the Fenn-Gib project in northern Ontario.

Southern Cross cut 404.4 metres grading 5.1 grams gold per tonne from 374 metres down hole SDDSC077B at Sunday Creek for a grade x width of 2,062. The drilling at the Rising Sun prospect intersected 13 high grade veins with three intervals in the project’s 10 best.

The continuity of gold-bearing structures between the holes is encouraging, especially in the hanging wall to the dyke where the better mineralization appears to be focused at Rising Sun, the company said.

“Finding seriously high-grades, such as 0.4 metre at 2,670 grams, was up until now the missing ingredient from the Sunday Creek epizonal-gold system,” Southern Cross managing director Michael Hudson said in a release on Sept. 4. “Epizonal deposits host some of the highest-grade gold mines globally due to the presence of these ‘jewelry boxes’ that can dramatically affect potential deposit grades.”

Drill hole SDDSC077B is the first hole at Rising Sun to expand the mineralized footprint 25 to 60 metres from hole SDDSC050, which cut 305 metres at 2.4 grams gold equivalent, and demonstrates continuity of mineralized structures, the company said.

Rising Sun remains open up-dip, down-dip and along strike, Southern Cross said. It is drilling hole SDDSC082 to a plan of 1,000 metres deep to target mineralization 100 metres below SDDSC077B. So far, it has intersected multiple zones of mineralization from 413 metres to 870 metres down hole and found visible gold in several areas.

Musgrave Minerals cut 18 metres grading 71 grams from 7 metres down hole 23MORC318* for a grade x width of 1,278 at its Cue-Break of Day property in Western Australia.

The company was taken over this month by Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS), the owner and operator of the Mt. Magnet, Edna May, Marda, Tampia and Penny gold mines in Western Australia. The results helped determine lode boundaries, ore thickness, grade distribution and existing voids for the Cue open pit project, Musgrave said in a release on Sept. 5.

“This is another strong set of drill results which continue to support the previously reported high-grade, near-surface endowment of the Cue gold project,” managing director Rob Waugh said. “Following the strong financial metrics of the stage on prefeasibility study in April 2023 and prior to the takeover, the company was focused on grade control drilling to de-risk the initial stages of open pit development.”

Mayfair Gold’s drill hole FG23-356 cut 922.8 metres grading 0.75 gram gold from 21.2 metres depth for a grade x width of 692 in the Fenn-Gib gold deposit. The hole marked the discovery of the Contact zone within mafic volcanics below the deposit’s Main zone.

The discovery is significant because it confirms the continuation of gold mineralization at depth below the bottom of the current pit-constrained resource, the company said in a release on Sept. 5. The higher-grade gold internal intersections demonstrate the potential for underground mining, it said.

“Since acquiring Fenn-Gib 32 months ago, we have increased the pit-constrained resource by over 70%, continued delineation of the adjacent higher-grade Footwall zone discovery and now made a new discovery at the Contact zone,” Mayfair president and CEO Patrick Evans said in the release.

The Fenn-Gib project, Mayfair’s main asset, is located 80 km east of Timmins. It holds 113.7 million indicated tonnes grading 0.9 gram gold for 3.8 million oz. contained metal, according to a resource update in June.