A-Cap
- Until MRP drilling, this area had undergone a significant amount of very shallow (less than 50m depth) drilling centred on the A-Cap pit area, with some significant intersections and exploration targets identified.
- The majority of this drilling was within the existing 14m deep open pit, and did not evaluate the bedrock potential in this area.
- MRP designed a dedicated drill program to evaluate the A-Cap pit, and the area between the A-Cap pit and the Powell pit to examine the opportunity for the extension of the MacPherson Pit through to the A-Cap into a single merged "big" pit.
- The drilling found a New discovery of A-Cap Reef Zone (HGZ), which was intersected for the first time in drilling beneath both the MacPherson and Powell open pits.
- The zone has been intersected in all holes to date at depths between 140 and 280m below surface and is currently being tracked into the floor of the A-Cap Open Pit.
- The current drill program have extended the MacPherson-Powell zones southward from the 2010 drill out and the new A-Cap HGZ has been intersected in all holes, with visible gold observed in six vein intersections prior to core cutting.
- There is now a JORC resource at A-Cap which forms part of the MacPhersons Reward Mine resource statement.
Historical drilling of the A-Cap pit was carried out by shallow (mostly less than 50m deep) RAB/RC drill holes with a near surface exploration target identified as 180,000 – 190,000 tonnes at 1.5 – 2.0 g/t gold. The exploration target was conceptual in nature and work completed historically was insufficient to define a Mineral Resource, and it was not certain if additional exploration would result in defining a Mineral Resource.
MRP have now extended the in-pit drilling from the base of both the MacPherson and Powell open pits and have intersected several stacked veins which are orientated in line with veins outcropping in the A-Cap pit. All holes to date have intersected a well defined 4 – 6 metre thick laminated quartz vein zone known as the HGZ which displays coarse visible gold in three drillholes (sections spaced 200m apart). Only one zone has been sampled to date (MRDH427) with the intercept grading 7.66 g/t gold over 4.7m from a depth of 274.7m (includes 1.37m @ 11.8 g/t gold).
Gold – bearing sulphide laminations indicate that the intersections are close to being true width thicknesses and that the geological model has been validated.
This HGZ has been extended upward to with 126m of the A-Cap pit floor and has been intersected in every hole. Drilling will continue southward and into the A-Cap pit.
Vein stacking, laminations, mineralisation-alteration haloes are identical to the MacPherson Reef Zone.