gets high grade gold at waidamudamu, page-3

After the initial discovery of gold-bearing boulders in the Yanawai River in November 1929, several gold-bearing quartz veins were discovered on the Waidamudamu ridge top, some 465m above sea level, and 1.4km east of Mt Kasi. In the early 1930's the Vatukasia Mining Company drove a number of exploratory drives and adits into the vein system, and historical records indicate that significant intersections (estimates include 100m @ 10.8 g/t Au; 50m @ 20.3 g/t Au, and 55m @ 8.3 g/t Au) were recorded from drive samples over widths of between 0.8 and 1.6m taken along the roof of these workings (Figure 4).
Development at Waidamudamu was interrupted by the discovery of gold mineralisation at the adjacent Mt Kasi in 1932, and no further work was undertaken until Anglo resampled the adits and subsequently drilled 9 diamond holes between 1979 and 1981. Unfortunately the Anglo drill results were inconclusive due to very low core recoveries. The Anglo adit sampling supported the high grade and continuous nature of the historical sampling and is summarised below:

Adit 1: 52m @ 15.9 g/t Au
Adit 2: 20m @ 6.4 g/t Au and 31m @ 9.6 g/t Au
Adit 4: 55m @ 6.2 g/t Au and 35m @ 18.9 g/t Au
Adit 9: 80m @ 4.7 g/t Au

Newmont drilled two holes in 1984, prior to a mapping and structural geology review exercise, and after conducting surface geochemistry, including the excavation of several surface costeans containing gold up to 12m @ 5.9 g/t Au, followed by two further holes in 1988. Three later RC holes were drilled by Pacific Islands Gold NL in 1994, which extended the known mineralisation and left the system open in all directions.

The Waidamudamu mineralisation is of a low sulfidation epithermal nature, with several planar 1-3m wide quartz-manganese veins within the system, which has been traced over a strike length of over 500m and a vertical range of 150m. The veins consist of banded and colloform-textured silica, grading to crystalline vuggy silica in some outcrop. Newmont noted two vein zones; a Main and Eastern zone, and postulated some post mineralisation faulting. A recent re-interpretation of the data has highlighted the likelihood of a separate parallel vein set further east, and indicates that previous drilling has inadequately tested the system in many cases.

The Company plans a 7-hole 750m programme to test extensions of the mineralization along strike to the north and south.

http://www.redbankmines.com.au/Projects/Mount_Kasi/