The Company completed 16 backhoe costeans across the interpreted surface locations of the East, West and C lodes of the Augusta gold and antimony deposit in central Victoria in April.
The costeaning was undertaken to provide additional data for the final feasibility study into the development of Augusta deposit and, combined with the 5100m of diamond drilling on the reef system, will assist in establishing the final mining reserves for the project.
The costeans were dug to a depth of 4m. Grab samples were taken from the backhoe bucket and, while occasionally solid lode material was located, the samples were commonly contaminated with lower grade material. The program confirmed that the lodes were from 30cm to 50cm wide and extend close to the surface.
At the projected surface position of East lode, five costeans were excavated and several located massive quartz antimony lodes at 3m to 4m. Initial gold results show values of up to 98.1 g/t gold with another seven samples returning over one ounce of gold per tonne in separate costeans. Lodes were estimated at 20cm to 70cm wide and visual inspection of the samples indicated that high antimony grades could also be expected from many of these samples. Antimony assay results are awaited.
At the projected surface position of West Lode, five costeans were excavated over a strike distance of 80m. Lode widths ranged from 30cm to 50cm. The best result returned 1.2g/t gold.
On C Lode six costeans were excavated over a strike distance of 80m. Gold values of up to 96g/t were recovered and the results showed a strong continuity of the lode position.
In addition to the surface trenching, a series of reverse circulation holes has been drilled to obtain maximum samples of the lodes for metallurgical testing. Samples from this programme have been sent for assay.
C 2 12.7 g/t Au C 3 96.0 g/t Au C 4 1.0 g/t Au C 5 69.3 g/t Au
West 11 1.2 g/t Au
East 12 53.8 g/t Au 13 90.0 g/t Au 13 69.5 g/t Au 14 10.0 g/t Au 14 13.3 g/t Au 14 43.6 g/t Au 14 25.1 g/t Au 14 75.1 g/t Au 14 35.6 g/t Au 15 1.7 g/t Au 15 60.7 g/t Au 16 98.1 g/t Au
J Debrodt COMPANY SECRETARY
Footnote: Geological information in this report is based on data provide by Graeme Weber, the company's geological consultant who is a Corporate Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and is a "Competent Person, as detailed in the September 1999 edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Minerals Resources and Ore Reserves (The JORC Code). The resource estimate published in this has been carried out by Mr Weber in compliance with JORC Code.
ends - AAP
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