Aureka caps off Vic exploration quarter cashed up and still drilling

Reinvigorated gold explorer Aureka Limited has delivered another busy quarter of gold discovery since relisting late last year. The company recently wrapped up drilling programs across its flagship Irvine and Tandarra gold projects in Victoria, alongside a third-pronged attack at its nearby St Arnaud prospect.

The company recently unveiled a set of fresh high-grade gold hits at depth across all three of its prospects, confirming the flagship Irvine project’s Resolution Lode down-plunge for a massive 220-metre extension.

Aureka Limited’s Comstock open pit in western Victoria, where the company has recently defined a 56,500-ounce gold resource.

Coupled with a strategic $3 million capital raise earlier in the quarter, Aureka remains cashed up to continue its push to expand its 360,800-ounce gold resource in a soaring gold price environment.

The primary focus remains on Irvine, which sits 16 kilometres south of the 5.3-million-ounce Stawell gold mine in Victoria’s prolific Stawell Corridor. The latest diamond drilling confirmed high-grade intercepts up to grades of 4.05 grams per tonne (g/t) at Resolution, confirming the depth potential to grow the deposit’s existing 304,000-ounce resource, graded at 2.43g/t.

The most intriguing results from Irvine came from the previously untested western flank of the Irvine basalt dome. A standout intercept of 0.32m at 4.72g/t gold from 159m confirmed gold to the west for the first time. It lies outside the current resource and mirrors what the company believes is a dual-flank mineralisation seen at Stawell’s Magdala basalt.

‘It is pleasing to see such encouraging results from our flagship Irvine gold project in the Stawell Corridor.’

Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry

With mineralisation open along strike and at depth, Aureka is now drilling a new hole to target high-grade zones 150m up-dip to refine its geological model to chase richer lodes. It expects to soon receive assay results from an important orientation wedge hole.

At Tandarra, Aureka’s joint venture with 51 per cent operator Catalyst Metals, drilling at the Lawry prospect has extended the mineralised strike to 430m with consistent high-grade hits, which are open in all directions.

Tandarra is 50km northwest of Agnico Eagle’s world-class Fosterville mine and 40km north of the 22-million-ounce Bendigo Goldfields, and Aureka says it continues to impress with its high-grade potential.

An eight-hole diamond drilling program totalling 1442m delivered multiple gold intersections with high-grade intervals up to 5g/t gold and 4.46g/t gold. The results build on previous blockbuster hits, such as 12.9m at 33.1g/t gold, including a stunning 0.5m at 831g/t.

Aureka believes its Lawry prospect is showing signs of intense faulting, akin to high-grade zones at Fosterville’s Swan zone and the nearby Four Eagles’ Iris zone. A five-hole air core program designed to further extend mineralisation toward the Four Eagles boundary returned notable intercepts up to 2.16g/t gold from just 79m.

Aureka Limited managing director James Gurry said: “It is pleasing to see such encouraging results from our flagship Irvine gold project in the Stawell Corridor.”

The new gold discovery outside the known mineralised zone at Irvine presents an opportunity for Aureka to expand the project’s size with a zealous approach to its lofty exploration target.

The recent target comprises 3.4 million tonnes to 5.2Mt at its Resolution and Adventure lodes for 280,000 ounces to 420,000 ounces of gold grading 2-3g/t, coupling nicely with the company’s latest St Arnaud exploration target.

The St Arnaud project encompasses a substantial 819 square kilometres of the historic high-grade goldfields. The project’s 1.45Mt maiden resource at 1.21g/t gold for 56,500 ounces was declared at the Comstock open pit in the quarter, complementing its exploration target for the promising pit of 112,000–116,000 ounces at 1–1.2g/t.

Historical production at St Arnaud averaged a stellar 15g/t across 400,000 ounces. Aureka is now preparing to test its extensions with a 1400m diamond drilling program.

With the Comstock pit in a public reserve and processing mills within trucking distance, Aureka sees a clear path to capitalise on its potential.

The company impressively managed to grow its total gold inventory recently by nearly 20 per cent on purely historic drilling.

Aureka’s continued exploration blitz is backed by a continued war chest nearing $5 million in cash, an impressive figure for a gold junior with a market capitalisation of just $12 million.

Further follow-up exploration is planned for Irvine’s western flank, with the latest drilling highlighting the area between the Resolution and Adventure lodes as a new zone of interest.

With dual rigs spinning for the active junior, assay results would seemingly be always pending for the company. The strong news flow and cash position has Aureka flat-out for the remaining year. Its three-pronged attack to expand Irvine’s resource, establish new resources at St Arnaud and continued news from Tandarra’s high-grade promise is enough activity to keep any junior goldie holder smiling.

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