Jan 12 2011
GGG Resources plc (LSE:GGG) has announced the results from 59 drill holes of the 18,000 metres resource drilling programme at the Bullabulling Gold Project, a former gold mine in the Coolgardie Goldfield of Western Australia, being developed with the Company's joint venture partner, Auzex Resources Limited. These results follow the announcement made on 15 December 2010 and form part of the same drill programme.
Highlights
Jeff Malaihollo, Managing Director, comments:
"We are highly encouraged by the results to date which confirm the model of a large, low grade deposit with high grade zones. About a quarter of these results show new zones of mineralisation outside of the historically modelled areas. The majority of the intersections reported today returned similar or better grades or widths of mineralisation. We are nicely on track to deliver an updated and upgraded JORC Mineral Resource in Q2 2011."
Geological Details:
Total drill meterage to date is 6,923m, including 3 pre-collars for the metallurgical test work sampling with average core production since the start of the programme of 204m per day. The drilling is progressing as planned and the work-plan to deliver an updated and upgraded JORC resource estimate for Bullabulling in Q2 2011 remains on track.
The main aim of the current drilling programme is to compare results from the historic drilling to allow the current Inferred Resource to be reclassified to Indicated and Measured Resource Categories, and in turn to enable initial JORC compliant reserves to be established for the project. The current reported JORC compliant mineral resource is 41,517,000 tonnes @ 1.48 g/t Au for 1.98 million ounces of gold at a 0.7 g/t Au cut off to an assumed mining depth of 315m RL, approximately 120m depth.
Drilling has continued to focus on infill drilling to the east and between the Bacchus and Phoenix pits, testing the limits of the resource in the footwall and hanging wall and following up intersections in historic drilling beneath 120m depth.
A total of 8,105 samples have been submitted for assay from the start of the programme (6,922 routine, 687 standards and blanks and 496 duplicates). Assays have been received for all samples submitted. All but one of the fifty nine holes drilled to date has intersected significant mineralisation at 0.3 g/t Au cut off that is similar in grade and widths to the historic drilling. Multiple intersections of mineralisation continue to be returned from each hole that correspond to the interpreted series of westerly dipping stacked lodes, which contain narrow higher grade zones of mineralisation that are discontinuous along strike. These higher grade zones include new intersections of 1m at 13.4 g/t Au from 21m in BJ00019, 10m at 6.4 g/t Au from 75m in BJ00030, 2m at 30.3 g/t Au from 77m in BJ00030, 6m at 4.5 g/t Au from 118m in BJ00040, 1m at 16.0 g/t Au from 58m in BJ00045, 4m at 7.5 g/t Au from 85m in BJ00046, 23m at 2.1 g/t Au from 121m in BJ00059, 39m at 4.9 g/t Au from 34m in BJ00061 and 1m at 152.0 g/t Au from 48m in BJ0061.
There are 192 mineralised intersections returned to date from the drilling and these have been compared to the resource block model to assess the validity of the reported resource. Of these 67 intersections have better grades or widths than predicted by the resource model. Only 23 intersections returned widths or grades worse than predicted by the model and the remaining intersections are similar to the resource model. A total of 50 of the reported intersections have returned gold mineralisation outside the current resource model, which has been reported to approximately 120m below surface, and these will add to the current resource base of the project.
In summary the drilling results to date have improved management's confidence in the current resource model and validated the historic data that was used to estimate the resource model. New zones of mineralisation have been intersected both below and along strike from known mineralisation which will add to the updated resource estimate. The programme is now one third complete and remains on track to be completed by the end of February and for resource modelling to be completed in the first half of 2011.
Snowden continued working on the new resource estimate and are continuing to review drilling results as they become available in relation to Quality Assurance / Quality Control ("QAQC") requirements to upgrade the current resource to Indicated and Measured categories. A review of the QAQC data for the assays received to date is being undertaken and results will be available by the end of January.
The current Inferred Resource estimate will be upgraded once the QAQC results have been analysed and a new resource model estimated to include the new infill drilling results. The new resource is expected to include mineralisation below the current Inferred Resource.
Metallurgical Drilling:
The programme of diamond drilling to collect samples for metallurgical test work has been completed. The core has been logged, photographed and selected 20-25m intervals (300kg) from each drill hole delivered to the Ammtec laboratory in Perth. The core has now been reviewed and various samples selected for comminution (a process by which solid materials are reduced in size, encompassing crushing, grinding and other techniques).
Three samples from each hole have been selected that are representative of the mineralised lithologies and sample preparation has been completed. The remaining core will be crushed and assayed and composite samples selected with grades from 0.7 g/t – 1.5 g/t Au for metallurgical variability test work.
For the purpose of Metallurgical testing, a large bore water sample is required to allow test work to be completed in conditions which are representative of the likely operating conditions.
An assessment of the current status of the Bullabulling ground water bore fields has been completed by geotechnical and hydrology consultants, Mining One. The bores have not been in operation since approximately 1999, but the review has established that all groundwater bores appear to be in good condition (i.e. bore casings appear intact, clean and free of obstruction) and the pipeline from the bore field to the project area is intact. A water sample will be collected, to assist in metallurgical test work, by using a submersible pump after the bore has been pumped clean for 24 hours. The sample will be collected and transported to Ammtec in Perth by the end of January.
Technical information in the Company's news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Jeffrey F. A. Malaihollo the Company's Managing Director, who is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Source: GGG Resources plc