Greatland Gold applies for 'comprehensive' drill programme

Precious and base metals exploration and development business Greatland Gold announced on Tuesday that planning has commenced for a comprehensive drilling programme at the Ernest Giles gold project in Western Australia.

The AIM-traded company confirmed it has lodged a Programme of Work application for the project with the Western Australian Department of Mines and Petroleum.

It said the application includes plans for a wide-spaced RC drilling campaign that will target gold, arsenic and antimony anomalies identified by soil sampling and drilling previously conducted in the southern parts of the Ernest Giles area.

That consists of around 30 drill locations for an estimated 6,000 metres of drilling.

Greatland said the key objectives of the RC drilling campaign will be to test for the presence of gold mineralisation in several large target areas, and follow up gold mineralisation discovered by the company in previous drilling.

“We are very pleased to announce a comprehensive, wide-spaced drilling campaign for our 100% owned Ernest Giles gold project,” said executive director Callum Baxter.

“We will test areas of gold mineralisation previously discovered by Greatland and also drill several other large targets in this highly prospective region.”

Baxter explained that government approvals are now underway and field activities have already commenced ahead of the drilling activities.

He said the board expects to receive approvals within 28 days and to commence drilling shortly after.

“The Ernest Giles project covers a significant portion of a large greenstone belt that has been subject to little historical exploration.

“Exploration work by Western Mining, in the late 1990s, identified a large gold-arsenic soil anomaly in the southern parts of the Ernest Giles project area,” Baxter said.

Initial drilling by Greatland nearby, conducted in 2010 and 2012, revealed large alteration systems and gold mineralisation.

“We look forward to providing further information on progress of approvals and commencement of drilling as activities progress.”