Ernest Giles - Commencement of Work Programme

RNS Number : 8552C

Greatland Gold PLC

20 April 2017

 

20 April 2017

Dissemination of a Regulatory Announcement that contains inside information according to REGULATION (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR).

Greatland Gold plc

("Greatland" or "the Company")

Ernest Giles - Commencement of Work Programme

Greatland Gold plc (LON:GGP), the London Stock Exchange AIM listed precious and base metals exploration and development business, is pleased to announce that gravity and passive seismic survey work has commenced at the Ernest Giles gold project.

Highlights

·     Following the successful drilling programme conducted in late 2016 at Greatland's 100% owned Ernest Giles gold project (see announcement dated 19 January 2017), Greatland has commenced gravity and passive seismic survey work at the Ernest Giles project;

·     The current programme of work includes a comprehensive gravity survey across large parts of the Ernest Giles project and trialling of a passive seismic survey technique at several high priority targets;

·     The key objective of the comprehensive gravity survey is to provide greater clarity to the mulitple high priority gold targets across the 1,000 square kilometre project area, thereby further enhancing future drill location planning;

·     Greatland expects the survey will take four weeks to complete and Greatland aims to publish the results of the survey approximately four weeks thereafter once data analysis has been completed.

Gervaise Heddle, Chief Executive Officer, commented: 'We are pleased to announce that gravity and and passive seismic survey work has commenced, with the first area of fieldwork being conducted at the Meadows target where two large zones of gold mineralisation were recently identified by a wide-spaced drilling campaign (see announcements dated 12 January 2017 and 19 January 2017).

Once the work at the Meadows target has been completed, we expect the survey teams to move on to other high priority targets including the Empress target in the north-eastern portion of the Ernest Giles greenstone belt. We would remind investors that the Ernest Giles project contains multiple attractive gold exploration targets and we believe that this survey work will help Greatland to best prioritise future exploration work.

Gravity and passive seismic surveys are an integral part of large scale exploration efforts for gold mineralisation and are relatively inexpensive when compared to full-scale drilling campaigns. Our view remains that the Ernest Giles project has the potential to host several major gold camps and that our investment in these surveys will greatly enhance our knowledge of this vast and virtually unexplored greenstone belt.'

Overview of Ernest Giles Project

The Ernest Giles project is located in central Western Australia, covering an area of more than 1,000 square kilometres that includes over 120km of strike of gold and nickel prospective rocks. The area is covered by desert sands and sediments, making it virtually unexplored. The region is home to several successful exploration discoveries such as Tropicana (AngloGold ASX:AGG), which contains over 7 million ounces, and Yamarna/Gruyere (Gold Road Resources ASX:GOR), with over 6 million ounces. The Company is targeting large +5m ounce deposits and clusters of several camp-type +1m ounce gold discoveries at Ernest Giles.

Earlier drill programmes by the Company at Ernest Giles intersected gold mineralisation and large alteration systems in wildcat drilling of blind structural targets defined by detailed airborne geophysics. This was considered a major achievement for such a large prospective area with virtually no historical work.

In late 2016, the Company completed a comprehensive broad spaced RC drilling programme at Meadows in the south-east of the project area which tested several large areas based on work completed by the Company and earlier work by Western Mining Corporation. This RC drill programme comprised 23 holes for 5,581m. Hole locations were based on a broad spaced grid pattern of 1,600m x 800m.

Mineralisation was observed in 13 of the 23 holes and several holes exhibited gold anomalous zones over tens of metres, peaking at 0.78g/t gold with mineralisation at end of hole. Two large zones of mineralisation were identified; Western 6km x 1.5km and Eastern 2km x 1.5km. Additional 1m sampling of several intercepts was undertaken to confirm preliminary results and better define mineralisation with many significant gold results returned up to 2g/t. Results confirmed mineralisation is present over a large area at Meadows and suggest that Greatland has discovered a new gold province in this largely unexplored region.

In late 2014, the Company completed a restricted programme of Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) surface geochemistry over several target areas which were outlined from interpretation of detailed aeromagnetics. Sample spacing was at a nominal 800m x 200m. Results from this sampling were positive over the Meadows area (peaking at 68ppb gold), and also at the Empress area. At Empress many samples returned +5ppb gold, which is quite high for MMI results, plus several above 40ppb gold peaking at 338ppb gold at the eastern extremity of three consecutive sample lines potentially outlining a significant anomaly 3km long by 1km wide which remains open to the east.

It should be noted that the Ernest Giles project area covers over 1,000 square kilometres and is host to a number of other high priority targets such as Wishbone (a high priority structural target), and Maple (a coincident MMI and structural target in the west of the project area).

Following a recent review of gold targets and mineralisation over the large project area the Greatland board believe that more information is required to prioritise drilling efforts. A comprehensive ground based gravity survey will be undertaken over the majority of the licence area to better define structural and lithological features. Ground gravity station spacing will be initially set at 1,600m x 200m and will take approximately four weeks to complete. Also, a relatively new passive seismic technique (Tromino) will also be trialled  in an effort to provide reliable basement profiles in areas of interest and this is likely to take approximately two weeks to complete at a variable station spacing as required.

Combining our detailed aeromagnetics with deep sensing geochemistry, ground gravity and passive seismic will provide us with an enhanced ability to generate and priorities drill targets thereby making our exploration efforts more cost effective. Our successful efforts to date have highlighted the potential of the Ernest Giles project to host several, very large, mineralised systems.

Additional information on the Ernest Giles project can be found on the Company web site at www.greatlandgold.com/projects

Competent Person:

Information in this announcement that relates to exploration results is based on information compiled by Mr Callum Baxter, a director of Greatland Gold plc, who is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Mr Baxter has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which has been undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined by the 2012 Edition of the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code) and under the AIM Rules - Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Mr Baxter consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears.

 

Enquiries:

Greatland Gold PLC

Callum Baxter/Gervaise Heddle

Tel [phone]

Email:  [e-mail]

www.greatlandgold.com

SPARK Advisory Partners Limited (Nominated Adviser)

Mark Brady/Sean Wyndham-Quin/James Keeshan

Tel [phone]

SI Capital Limited (Broker)

Nick Emerson / Andy Thacker

Tel  [phone]

Notes for Editors:

Greatland Gold plc is London listed (LON:GGP) natural resource exploration and development company with a current focus on gold and nickel exploration projects.  

The Company has five main projects; three situated in Western Australia and two in Tasmania.  All projects are 100% owned by Greatland or Greatland has the right to take 100% ownership.  

Greatland is seeking to identify large mineral deposits in areas that have not been subject to extensive exploration previously.  It is widely recognised that the next generation of large deposits will come from such under-explored areas and Greatland is applying advanced exploration techniques to investigate a number of carefully selected targets within its focused licence portfolio.

The Company is also actively investigating a range of new opportunities in precious and strategic metals and will update the market on new opportunities as and when appropriate.

 

END

 

 

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