Dart Mining completes 2020 drilling across Victorian gold projects

Dart Mining NL (ASX:DTM) has completed its 2020 drilling program, which included drilling across four projects - Buckland, Granite Flat, Rushworth and Sandy Creek - across Victoria. Despite the severe operating restrictions resulting from Victoria’s COVID-19 lockdowns, the company was able to safely complete around 5000 metres of drilling across four projects in steep, semi-alpine terrain throughout one of the state’s wettest Spring periods in recent years. Buckland project A low impact rotary air blast (RAB) drill program of 19 holes for 803 metres was undertaken at the Fairley’s Prospect and the results revealed high-grade gold intersections that successfully extended the strike extent of gold mineralisation for over 100 metres. The program focused on expanding the strike extent of disseminated sulphide mineralisation along the Fairley’s Shear Zone. Drilling targeted mineralisation 60 metres northwest and 45 metres southeast of the previous drilling, extending the concentration of drilling to a strike length of over 240 metres at the Fairley’s prospect. Drilling and previous chip sampling indicate that mineralisation occurs at surface and remains open at depth. Granite Flat Project A total of 42 holes for around 1400 metres were completed at the Granite Flat project during November. These holes targeted structurally hosted gold and copper mineralisation that was exploited by historic miners but has only been tested sporadically by previous explorers. The program focused on expanding the strike extent of disseminated sulphide mineralisation along the Fairley’s Shear Zone. This first pass program aimed at delineating the strike, dip and tenor of mineralised structures and will be used to help design a reverse circulation and diamond drilling program targeting depth extents of mineralisation at the prospect in 2021. Drilling was challenging for the RAB rig, with some holes collapsing or producing large amounts of water. Despite this, many holes intersected broad zones of copper mineralisation or ended in evident copper-rich intervals. Rushworth Project A total of 44 holes for 1,270 metres were completed at Rushworth. Of these, 10 holes stopped short due to intersecting workings above the Phoenix and Appleton stopes. The drilling focused on testing the quartz vein and stockwork hosted orogenic, epizonal gold mineralisation model in the Phoenix Reef area and will assist in developing appropriate sampling and assaying techniques for use in any future resource estimations on the project. Total sample material was collected for each drilled metre and will be collated to form a series of bulk samples to fully assess the contained gold content. Many metre intervals were noted to contain significant percentages of vein quartz material. Sandy Creek Project A total of 43 holes for a total of 1,308 metres were completed at Sandy Creek. The program was designed to identify the extent of broad, lower-grade gold-sulphide mineralisation beyond the narrow confines of existing workings which typically targeted narrow, high-grade gold mineralisation and provided a limited indication as to the extent of the disseminated gold-sulphide mineralisation of the Yabba Granite. The drill program at Sandy Creek was hampered by the prevalence of previously un-mapped historic workings, a very high-water table and steep, slippery terrain. Some of the holes did not reach the planned target depth but did appear to be entering mineralised zones upon termination. Future drilling at Sandy Creek will employ a drill rig that is capable of returning a sample from below the water table and reaching greater depths than the exploratory RAB rig used on this first phase program. Final laboratory assay results have so far been received for the Buckland program with all other samples still undergoing analysis. The company is experiencing a significant delay in sample turn-around time due to the high volume of work at the laboratory.