Havilah Resources achieves West Kalkaroo open pit objectives and looks for more gold

Havilah Resources Ltd (ASX:HAV) has largely achieved its drilling objectives within a conceptual gold starter open pit at West Kalkaroo in South Australia and is turning its attention to new exploration leads outside the current resource. Previous results, including 82 metres of 1.14 g/t gold, highlight the prospectivity for fracture-controlled saprolite gold mineralisation near the intersection of two major faults at the project within the broader Kalkaroo Copper-Gold Project. A recent follow-up drill hole returned 16 metres of 2.04 g/t gold in quartz-veined saprolite adjacent to a north-northeast trending fault. Turning to new leads With only a few infill holes remaining to be drilled to complete the current West Kalkaroo program, the encouraging results have prompted Havilah to turn its attention to new gold exploration leads in areas further to the east. The demonstrated potential for widespread fracture vein and breccia style copper-gold mineralisation will be the company’s target of further follow-up exploration drilling in this area. A favoured area is near the intersection of two major faults which are thought to have formed part of the structural architecture that focused the Kalkaroo copper-gold mineralisation. Analysis of earlier drill holes in this area in Vulcan 3D software identified long gold runs in deeply weathered bedrock (termed ‘saprolite’) that lies above the main copper-gold mineralised prospective horizon, as also observed at West Kalkaroo. “Excellent potential” Havilah’s technical director Dr Chris Giles, said: “The logging and assays suggest that the saprolite gold mineralisation here is largely related to fracturing and quartz veining of the host rocks caused by the crushing effect near the intersection of two major faults. “We think this fault intersection area has excellent potential for discovery of a new fracture vein and breccia copper-gold mineralised zone and we will be testing this with additional drilling over coming weeks.” Additional drilling planned It is planned to carry out additional follow-up drilling to determine the extent of this style of fracture-controlled gold mineralisation, which in general is of higher grade than the more typical Kalkaroo stratabound replacement style copper-gold mineralisation. Havilah is examining the feasibility of a gold starter project at West Kalkaroo to support the development of the larger Kalkaroo Copper-Gold Project. Starter pit work Giles added: “In the meantime, our senior mine planning engineer Richard Buckley continues to work on the optimum design for the gold-only startup open pit and our other Adelaide-based technical staff are preparing additional documentation for mining approvals.” Shares are up more than 7% to 14.5 cents and have risen from 5.3 cents at the close on March 13.