Greatland Gold upbeat on recent drilling at Ernest Giles

Greatland Gold announced the conclusion of its Western Australian government co-funded drilling programme at the Meadows gold prospect on Thursday, situated within its wholly-owned Ernest Giles project.

The AIM-traded firm said the completed programme, consisting of two diamond core holes totalling 1,267.7 metres, yielded significant findings and paved the way for further exploration efforts.

Anomalous mineralisation was discovered, with noteworthy results including eight metres at 0.12 grams of gold per tonne from a depth of 316 metres in EGD006.

The discovery was associated with alteration and anomalous pathfinder geochemistry, providing valuable geological and structural insights for future endeavours.

Greatland said the data obtained from the drilling programme would inform a systematic reverse circulation drill initiative, slated for later in the year, to thoroughly assess highly-prospective targets at the Meadows prospect.

In addition to the completed drilling programme, plans were in place for a ground-induced polarisation survey later in 2024 to enhance target refinement, alongside further airborne geophysics.

Those efforts were intended to bolster understanding of the geological landscape and optimise exploration strategies.

Looking ahead, a follow-up reverse circulation drilling programme was being designed for the latter half of 2024, building on the insights gained from recent drilling.

The board said the programme would focus on systematically testing high-potential geological targets, particularly exploring mineralised fluid pathways and assessing alteration patterns.

Furthermore, a detailed ground-induced polarisation survey was scheduled to refine targeting approaches, leveraging the electrical response of sulphide grains in alteration systems.

The company said the method promised cost-effective identification of sulphide haloes around orebodies, enhancing the efficiency of exploration efforts.

Greatland said the Ernest Giles project, situated 250 kilometres northeast of Laverton, boasted a folded belt of magnetic greenstone rocks, characteristic of highly gold-endowed regions in Western Australia's Archean Goldfields.

Despite its underexplored status due to limited outcropping, Greatland said it holds a comprehensive tenure over the most promising segments of the belt, covering more than 1,950 square kilometres.

“Completing the land access agreement and EIS co-funded drilling at Ernest Giles is a significant milestone for the project, marking the first on-ground exploration in over five years,” said managing director Shaun Day.

“Ernest Giles is an exciting 100%-owned project that sits outside our strong foothold in the Paterson region, in an underexplored Archean greenstone belt that hosts many tier-one deposits.

“These initial results are encouraging and confirm the prospectivity of the project - the results will inform further exploration work, including a more extensive drilling programme this year.”

At 1140 GMT, shares in Greatland Gold were flat at 7.9p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.