Southern Gold Ltd (ASX:SAU) is set to start diamond drilling at the Bonanza Zone within the Deokon Gold-Silver Project in South Korea after securing land access and regulatory approvals.
The first pass scout drilling program is designed to initially test the Bonanza Zone outcrop and will involve close-spaced drilling to determine the unknown true width of the mineralised zone and quantify representative gold and silver grade.
This initial program will consist of four diamond drill holes from Pad 1 for about 500 metres, three of which are designed to intersect around 25 metres below the identified outcrop at around 40 metres apart with a fourth planned to intersect the structure at depth about 50 metres below the surface.
A second pad along strike is also planned to follow with stage II holes.
Recently constructed track up to the Bonanza Zone drill pad
Managing director Simon Mitchell said: “We are extremely pleased to have secured the required approvals in a timely manner in order to drill the first program into the compelling target at Bonanza Zone this year.
“Our 100%-owned Deokon project with bonanza gold and silver on surface, including visible native silver in hand specimen, is a genuine walk-up drill target which has never been tested before.
“Deokon is an exciting project and is just one part of the enormous exploration potential that is unfolding in South Korea.”
The ‘Bonanza Zone’ is part of the Golden Surprise trend representing a low sulphidation epithermal target within the broader Deokon project hosting a high-quality gold-silver fertile epithermal mineralisation system.
The Bonanza Zone returned a peak of 32.4 g/t gold and 1,096 s/t silver in outcrop and 78.6 g/t gold and 13,000 g/t silver in float on July 17, 2019.
Deokon project sampling results and planned drilling at Bonanza
Beopseongpo drilling update
A maiden diamond drilling program at Beopseongpo was completed on October 22 which involved four holes for 653.63 metres at Lotus North prospect as well as three holes at the Hand of Faith prospect.
Final assays are expected during November with the program to be summarised in more detail.
After the first Deokon program is completed, drilling is planned to recommence at the Golden Palm target of the Beopseongpo project, where the onset of winter will have less impact on operations due to the southerly coastal location compared with the more elevated terrain at Deokon.
Concurrent with the drilling activities, two very experienced geological consultants will also be working on project generation activities involving reconnaissance rock chip sampling and mapping in different areas for the entire month of November before the winter period sets in.