Aureka strikes high-grade gold extensions at Victorian play

Aureka Limited has intercepted gold grading up to 19.9 grams per tonne (g/t) in a cluster of high-grade extensions from the company’s drilling program at its St Arnaud gold project in western Victoria.

Encouragingly, the results are from the first hole of Aureka’s campaign. They confirm gold mineralisation continuity down-dip of a maiden 56,500-ounce resource at its high-grade Comstock gold prospect, 90 kilometres west of the historic gold mining town of Bendigo.

Aureka Limited management inspecting the high-grade Comstock open pit within its St Arnaud gold project in western Victoria.

Aureka says its gold inventory at Comstock is showing early potential to quickly expand the 56,500-ounce maiden resource towards its recent exploration target of up to 116,000 ounces of gold ranging from 1.0g/t to 1.2g/t gold.

The standout results are from Aureka’s first diamond drill hole targeting the Comstock shear, a key structural feature hosting gold within quartz reef systems. It delivered multiple high-grade hits outside the existing resource, including a 6.9-metre interval at a substantial 4.24g/t gold from 422.1m followed by a 3.2m hit grading 4.71g/t gold from 434m, including 0.6m at a stellar 19.9g/t gold.

The company says its results confirm mineralisation about 190m down-dip of legacy drilling, which returned hits such as 6.4m at 1.3g/t gold and 4.6m at 3.2g/t gold.

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

Aureka managing director James Gurry

The visual mineralisation is hosted in sheared stylolitic quartz veins with elevated sulphides, with high-grade zones of more than 18g/t gold linked to shear and tensional quartz-pyrite veins standing out like the white stripes on a black zebra.

The results suggest a steep plunging ore shoot, typical of the region’s high-grade gold systems, such as the nearby world-class Fosterville gold mine.

Aureka’s ongoing diamond drilling program at Comstock will continue to target down-dip and down-plunge extensions of the quartz reef system. The company’s technical team is focused on refining its geological model to continue to uncover higher-grade lodes, with today’s results a promising start.

Aureka managing director James Gurry said: “It is pleasing to see such encouraging results from our flagship Irvine gold project in the Stawell Corridor. While the diamond drilling program remains ongoing, we have already identified new areas of mineralisation on the west flank of the basalt, and now the likely extension to the Resolution shoot, which is a key underpinning of the 280,000 to 420,000 ounce at 2–3g/t exploration target 1 on this lode.”

In June, Aureka announced a maiden inferred resource at Comstock of 1.45 million tonnes at 1.21g/t gold for 56,500 ounces. Alongside this, the company defined an exploration target of 3.0–3.5Mt at 1–1.2g/t gold for 112,000–116,000 ounces of gold.

The new drilling results look promising in validating this target, with the high-grade hits indicating the potential to expand the resource through continued deeper drilling.

Comstock is in Aureka’s broader St Arnaud project, which encompasses a substantial 819 square kilometres of historic high-grade goldfields. The St Arnaud goldfields produced about 400,000 ounces of gold averaging a remarkable 15g/t, and grades up to 50g/t were mined at Comstock, before operations ceased in the 1990s.

The Comstock pit is in a fenced-off public reserve which offers permitting advantages over greenfield sites. Its proximity to several operating gold processing mills within trucking distance also positions Aureka to capitalise on the current strong gold price environment via an early-stage toll milling production scenario.

Aureka’s broader portfolio includes its flagship Irvine project, where a 304,000-ounce resource at 2.43g/t gold has been defined just 20km from the 5.3-million-ounce Stawell gold mine. Further afield, the company owns a substantial interest in the Tandarra joint venture with 51 per cent owner/operator Catalyst Metals. Tandarra is 50km northwest of the ultra-high-grade Fosterville mine, owned since 2022 by Agnica Eagle Mines.

With a robust cash balance of nearly $5 million following a $3 million capital raise earlier this year, Aureka is well-funded to pursue its aggressive exploration strategy across its Victorian assets.

The latest results from Comstock underscore Aureka’s ability to unlock value from its advanced-stage exploration projects.

As Aureka continues its exploration blitz across Irvine and Comstock, the potential for significant resource growth in Victoria’s high-grade gold terrane looks to be truly taking shape.

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