SOUTH Australian mining company Argonaut Resources (ASX: ARE) commenced drilling yesterday at the Island and Birties gold prospects in Higginsvale, WA.
After approval by the WA Government to drill both areas, Argonaut secured a suitable track-mounted, slim-hole reverse circulation (RC) drilling rig to target untested gold anomalies.
The drilling program will involve 15-20 holes at the Island gold prospect and 10-15 holes at the Birties gold prospect at a total cost of $350,000.
The Island gold prospect, which benefits from the absence of historic drilling, sits over a major structural intersection that may have been a conduit for gold mineralising fluids.
The Island gold targets were confirmed by SensOre Ltd’s proprietary mineral exploration artificial intelligence (AI) system.
SensOre applied its AI system to Argonaut’s Higginsville tenements and identified the Island gold prospect as a target with attractive properties in terms of gold endowment probabilities, gold grade probabilities, depth to deposit probabilities and a low exploration maturity ranking.
The Birties gold prospect features a gold geochemistry anomaly that was generated by a previous explorer in the early 2010s and is over 1km in diameter.
Argonaut aims to test the peak gold anomaly through its drilling program at Birties.
The company holds a 51pc interest in a package of tenements around Higginsville and can earn up to 80pc under an earn-in joint venture.
