TNM Drill Down: Top gold assays for the week Aug 19-26

Our TNM Drill Down feature highlights the top gold assays of the past week. Assays are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by our sister company Mining Intelligence. 

TNM Drill Down Aug. 19-26, 2022.

Brisbane-based Santana Minerals (ASX: SMI) delivered the top intercept of the week from its Bendigo-Ophir project in New Zealand’s Central Otago goldfields. 

Hole MDD054 cut 1 metre of 1,400 grams gold per tonne for a grade x width of 1,400, starting from 179 metres depth. The same hole also returned 1 metre of 127 grams gold from 180 metres depth. (A top cut of 100 grams gold was used.) Partial assays for Hole MDD054 were previously reported and highlighted in TNM Drill Down, delivering 29.3 metres grading 13.8 grams gold per tonne from 165.8 metres deep.  

The intercepts, along with intervals from hole MDD051 drilled 80 metres to the southwest, indicate a significant high-grade zone on the eastern margin of the RAS shoot, which measures 300 to 400 metres wide and 1,500 metres long. Gold mineralization at the project is shear-hosted, in quartz veins and stockworks. 

The Bendigo-Ophir project, located 90 km northwest of OceanaGold’s (TSX: OGC) Macraes gold mine, consists of four deposits (Rise and Shine (RAS), Come-in-Time, Shreks and Shreks East) extending 4 km northwest-southeast along the Thompsons Gorge Fault. 

A July 2022 resource update pegged inferred resources at 33.4 million tonnes grading 1.8 grams gold per tonne for 1.9 million oz. of gold. 

In July, the company announced a private placement to extend its drill program, with more than 14,400 metres completed in 2022 to the end of August. 

The week’s second best hole came from Galiano Gold (TSX: GAU) and Gold Fields’ (NYSE: GFI; JSE: GFI) producing Asanko joint venture mine in Ghana.  

Diamond drill hole NKDD22-100 cut 16.4 metres of 47.3 grams gold per tonne (grade x width of 775.7) from 13.6 metres at the Nkran deposit. The hole was part of an infill drill program completed to increase confidence in resources and expand mineralization below the existing open pit, which was last mined in 2020. 

So far the JV, operated by Galiano, has completed 24 holes totalling 8,116 metres this year at Nkran. The results will be incorporated into a resource update that will support an updated reserve estimate in early 2023. 

Nkran hosts indicated resources of 12.1 million tonnes grading 2.9 grams gold per tonne for 814,000 oz., and inferred resources of 1.3 million tonnes grading 2.23 grams gold for 96,000 ounces. The deposit is located next to the 5.8-million-tonne-per-year processing plant at Asanko. 

The mine, situated on the Asankrangwa gold belt, is equally owned by Galiano and Gold Fields, with the government of Ghana holding a 10% interest.  

And the third best interval comes from Canada, at Snowline Gold’s (CSE: SGD) 112.3-sq-km Rogue project in the Yukon. Diamond drill hole V-22-007 cut 282.9 metres grading 2.3 grams gold (grade x with of 650.7) from a depth of only 5.1 metres, starting at the bedrock surface.  

Assays for the bottom 127 metres of the hole are still pending. 

The hole was drilled at the Valley target, a near-surface intrusive stock with sheeted gold-bearing quartz veins within the intrusion and visible gold in sulphide veins in the surrounding hornfels. 

Snowline has two drill rigs at Valley, discovered in 2021, with 6,750 metres drilled so far this season. Mineralization at the bulk-tonnage zone has been traced for about 1 km

The project is one of seven Snowline projects located in the Selwyn Basin, in east-central Yukon. Snowline’s portfolio was spun out from a Yukon-based, private prospecting company. The company began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange as Snowline Gold in February 2021, after taking over the listing of a bitcoin miner.