Sediment with coarse gold mineralisation has been confirmed within the Western Flanks orebody at Westgold Resources’ Beta Hunt mine in Western Australia.
Within the Beta Hunt mine, the majority of gold mineralisation is hosted within the Lunnon Basalt and associated with northwest trending subvertical structures.
Within the Lunnon Basalt is a narrow pyritic laminated shale horizon known as the Lunnon Sediment.
When intersected by mineralising structures, such as that in a primary area known as the ‘A Zone’, it was found the Lunnon Sediment has developed a bonanza grading southerly plunging coarse gold zone along the length of the A Zone.
This gold zone includes the Father’s Day Vein (FDV) occurrence which was discovered in 2018 and produced in excess of 30,000 ounces of gold.
Importantly, the FDV had not been captured in the A Zone geological or mineral resource estimation model at that time.
“Coarse gold occurrences at Beta Hunt, such as the famous ‘Father’s Day Vein’ discovered in 2018, have to date been limited to the A Zone deposit,” Westgold managing director and chief executive officer Wayne Bramwell said.
“The confirmation of this style of mineralisation within the Western Flanks deposit not only provides increased production upside, it also indicates the potential for additional bonanza grade zones within other mineralised structures such as the Fletcher Zone.
“Westgold sees a much larger opportunity at Beta Hunt and across our Southern Goldfields assets, with drilling the catalyst to defining their real scale.”
Accelerated drilling programs will now ramp up at the site over the next year to determine the full size and scale of the find.
Subscribe to Australian Mining and receive the latest news on product announcements, industry developments, commodities and more.
