Beadell Resources (ASX: BDR) is a gold development company. Its primary asset is the Tucano gold project, located in Brazil. Tucano has gold resources of approximately 3 million ounces with 1.2 million ounces in optimised open pits (optimisation based on a US$1000 gold price) plus over 2,500km² of highly prospective gold exploration tenements.
Beadell also has an extensive portfolio of key gold exploration tenements throughout Australia and Brazil, including the prospective Tropicana East Project located adjacent to the Tropicana gold deposit managed by Anglogold Ashanti Australia and the Handpump Prospect located within the West Musgrave Complex of the remote central eastern parts of Western Australia.
Beadell Resources confirms significance of West Musgrave gold discovery
Perth-based Beadell Resources (ASX: BDR) has announced that 1m resplit results from the 7 hole first pass Reverse Circulation drilling program at the Handpump prospect have confirmed previously reported 5m composite results.
The new results, including 15 m @ 2.3 g/t gold from 31 m including 5 m @ 4.7 g/t gold from 34 m, 7 m @ 1.4 g/t from 3 m and 11 m @ 1.1 g/t from 24 m, validate the existence of a completely new gold mineralised system in the West Musgrave province which remains open along strike and at depth.
The discovery drill hole HPC001 intersected wide zones of brecciation and potassic alteration with a mineralised envelope reporting 60 m @ 0.9 g/t gold from 13 m. The gold mineralisation shows a distinctly consistent halo effect to the higher grade zones with internal intercepts, including 15 m @ 2.3 g/t from 31 m encompassing a core of mineralisation assaying 5 m @ 4.7 g/t gold from 34 m.
The gold mineralisation intersected in HPC001 is interpreted to dip steeply to the north and remains completely open at depth and along strike to northwest.
To the southeast a second RC traverse drilled 100 m away only partly tested the interpreted strike of the breccia mineralisation in HPC001 intersecting the mineralisation in the top part of HPC005 which reported 7m @ 1.4 g/t gold from 3 m depth including 5 m @ 1.7 g/t gold from 5 m.
Additional parallel mineralised zones were intersected immediately south of the main mineralised breccia with HPC006 intersecting 11 m @ 1.1 g/t from 24 m and 5 m @ 0.9 g/t gold from 101 m.
These additional zones remain completely open along strike to the northwest and at depth.
Gold mineralisation at the Handpump prospect is associated with a magmatic hydrothermal breccia hosted in rhyolite. The mineralisation remains completely open to the northwest of the initial discovery drill hole HPC001 and a follow up RC drilling program is planned to test both the northwest extension of the mineralisation under cover and down dip projection of the mineralisation.
Beadell Managing Director Peter Bowler said the results confirmed the significance of this exciting new discovery in the Musgrave region.
"We remain extremely encouraged with this district and the eagerly anticipated follow up RC program will commence shortly," Mr Bowler said.
The planned RC drilling program will commence on the 20 January 2010.
The Handpump prospect has only been partially tested over a strike length of 300 m. Multiple zones of gold mineralisation suggest a larger and as yet undefined mineralised system located along a major geological contact between agglomerate and brecciated rhyolite with vast untested strike extensions under cover.
The Handpump discovery represents the first definitive gold mineralisation intersected in the entire sparsely explored central Australian Musgrave block and potentially represents the emergence of a new and exciting gold district in Australia.
The RC drilling at Handpump was co-funded by the Western Australian government through the Geological Survey of Western Australia’s Exploration Initiative Scheme.
