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Murray Ward
PLC Resources has lit up a pair of compelling gold stories at its Abbotts North project in Western Australia’s Murchison region, with maiden reconnaissance drilling sniffing out a potential gold system at its Rochefort prospect. Additionally, a new airborne survey has unveiled a major, untested regional target corridor right next door.
The company’s first-pass reverse circulation drilling at Rochefort returned anomalous gold up to 0.4 grams per tonne (g/t). Whilst the grades themselves are relatively low, it’s the associated geology and geochemistry that has caught management’s attention.
PLC says the results show a clear pathfinder signature, including albite alteration and sulphidation, which points to a potential deep gold system northwest of the current drilling.
Notably, the anomaly is hosted within highly fractionated dolerites, a geological setting famously associated with many significant gold deposits across the Yilgarn Craton. The 60-million-ounce Kalgoorlie Super Pit being a prime example.
‘PLC is fully funded to drill this target. Its a target we can drill again quickly under our existing approvals.’
PLC Resources executive director Simon Phillips
The company says the geochemical trends, including increasing sulphur and gold values, suggest the drill holes may have clipped the edge of a more significant mineralised system.
With follow-up drilling already being planned under existing approvals, PLC won’t have to wait long to test the theory.
PLC Resources executive director Simon Phillips said: “The reconnaissance drilling has successfully delivered a pathway to a potential new gold system located northwest and nearby to the completed drill program. We may have drilled on the edge of a significant gold mineralised system.”
The geochemical smoke at Rochefort was already a significant indicator. However, a recently completed high-resolution airborne magnetic survey has fundamentally changed the company’s understanding of the wider Abbotts North project.
The fresh geophysical data has successfully identified a new, entirely untested regional-scale structural corridor.
PLC’s survey revealed a large fold system, or syncline, on the eastern margin of the Abbotts greenstone belt. The company says this structure intersects a deep-seated crustal feature, a structural setting recognised as a first-order control on high-grade gold across the Yilgarn region.
The scale of the discovery appears to be significant, creating a structural corridor with more than eight kilometres of strike on the eastern limb and over six kilometres on the western limb, all neatly within PLC’s ground.
Adding a bit of geological spice to the discovery, the new corridor lies along strike from several prospects held by its neighbour New Murchison Gold, including its 228,400-ounce Crown Prince deposit, which grades a solid 3.3g/t gold.
A second, newly identified cross-cutting structure has also been defined, extending towards other historical gold prospects on New Murchison’s ground.
With programs of work already approved for regional air core drilling, this new target area is also ripe for testing.
Whilst Abbotts North is the focus of PLC’s current activities, it is just one of the company’s two flagship assets. Formerly known as Premier1 Lithium before pivoting its strategy to gold, it also owns the Yalgoo gold project, giving it exposure to another highly prospective Western Australian gold district.
Yalgoo covers more than 220 square kilometres in the prolific Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt, host to major copper and gold mines, including 29Metals’ 1.5-million-ounce gold equivalent Golden Grove operation just 50 kilometres along strike.
With assays from Rochefort now in hand and a major new target area unveiled, PLC says it’s picking up the pace on two fronts.
The near-term priority is to chase up the geochemical targets at Rochefort with more drilling, which can be mobilised quickly under existing approvals. In parallel, the company will undertake a detailed interpretation of the new airborne survey data to refine drill targets across the extensive new regional corridor.
While the early drill hits are modest, the associated geochemistry is pointing the way, with a brand-new, large-scale structural play now lighting up the ground next door.
It seems PLC went looking for a gold deposit at Abbotts North and may have just stumbled across an entire mineralised system.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
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