Diamond Drilling commenced at New Bendigo “Main Zone” on 25 May 2022. Drilling commenced by re-entering a previously drilled RC hole (NB0107), with another planned for NB0123, as they were not drilled to depth due to significant amount of water being intersected that affected sample quality.
To date, MHC has completed four holes (NB0107, NBD0004-06) for 731 metres. MHC anticipates that DD Drilling will continue through to mid to late July. Drilling is focused on evaluating the higher-grade mineralisation that is interpreted to be associated with plunging veins and or shoots that has returned significant results, including:
- 30m at 4.03 g/t Au from 11m, including 5m at 20.86 g/t Au (NB0033)
- 16m at 13.89 g/t Au from 1m, including 3m at 69.20g/t Au (NB0083)
- 8m at 40.5 g/t Au from 70m, including 3m at 105.34 g/t Au (NB0089)
- 7m at 13.10 g/t Au from 97m, incl. 5m at 18.01 g/t Au (NB0113)
- 13m at 6.16 g/t Au from 50m, incl. 3m at 25.48 g/t Au (NB0122).
Drilling recently intersected visible gold in diamond core that extends for ~20cm and is associated with laminated quartz veining within a broader altered interval in hole NBD0005 (Figure 1). The intersected vein was able to be orientated with a reasonable degree of confidence, allowing MHC to gather vital data on the structural controls on mineralisation at New Bendigo. The orientated core returned from NBD0005, is the first core to be successfully drilled and orientated through the high-grade part of the system, with previous drilling either not intersecting the higher-grade component or not being able to be orientated due to low competency of the core.
MHC considers this to be a significant breakthrough in understanding the mineralising controls at New Bendigo, which may have further repercussions for other prospects external to New Bendigo, as the intersection of visible Au in diamond drill core, provides MHC with much sought after clarification and supports MHC’s belief that the mineralised system is made up of two styles of mineralisation, namely:
- A series of high-grade plunging veins and or shoots, with the vein contacts from NBD0005 being able to be measured, being orientated at ~25 degrees (dip) towards the west (North-South Strike); and
- A broad low-grade system that is confined within the steeply dipping “New Bendigo” regional shear system that strikes at ~330 degrees and is influenced by high grade veins/shoot that pass through or crosscut the regional shear system.
The orientation of the vein containing visible gold in NBD0005 is of further importance as the measured contacts of the vein can be extrapolated from the hole and potentially traced outside of existing drilling ~450 metres to the SSW connecting to RC drilling completed on the “Western Lode” that returned:
- 7m at 18.16 g/t Au from 87m (NB0023) in 2020.
If the above hypothesis is correct, then the high-grade Au intersected in RC drilling (as listed above) could have a similar orientation to the vein intersected in NBD0005, supporting the existence of further veins or vein-sets that cross-cut or have an “En Enchelon” pattern oblique to the regional shear system. Further diamond drilling has been planned to initially test this hypothesis, commencing at “Western Lode”.
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