Thor Mining makes progress at Ragged Range

Thor Mining updated the market on exploration at its wholly-owned Ragged Range Project in Western Australia’s Eastern Pilbara on Wednesday, including the first soil results from two reconnaissance soil surveys at the Sterling prospect.

The AIM-traded firm said a gold-in-soil anomalism was defined over a 1.2 kilometre strike length with six soil lines, and was open to the south and north in the central area of Sterling, close to the Euro basalt and Dalton Suite ultramafic contact.

Up to 114 parts of gold per billion in soil samples was reported in the central area of the Sterling prospect, which is well above background and considered highly significant.

Thor Mining had been awarded AUD 0.16m (£0.09m) from the Western Australian government under its EIS co-funded grants programme, to drill test stream and soil gold anomalies at Sterling.

A new tenement application, ‘E46/1393’, covering a recently-surrendered mining lease had been made, containing a number of historic copper-gold workings associated with the Boolina porphyry close to the Corunna Down Batholith.

Historic production between 1955 and 1970, although small, was of “very high” grade at 610 tonnes of ore averaging 19.47% copper.

Infill soils and geochemical data analyses were continuing, with field mapping and a regional soil and stream sampling programme scheduled to start in the short-term over priority targets within the anomalous 13 kilometre gold trend, to further delineate coherent gold trends prior to and concurrent with drill testing at the Sterling prospect.

Further geophysics was being assessed across the Ragged Range tenement package to generate additional gold, copper and nickel exploration targets.

“These latest results are very promising for Thor as the gold anomalism in soils supports the stream sediment results, with gold clusters and trends forming in the Sterling prospect,” said managing director Nicole Galloway Warland.

“This confirms the significant exploration potential for a quality gold discovery at Ragged Range.”

Galloway Warland said an old track into the prospect area was currently being upgraded to allow for the exploration teams to work independently, without needing to rely on helicopter support.

“This will speed up Thor's field work and allow follow up soil sampling to be completed quickly and will also allow access for a drilling rig.”

At 1430 BST, shares in Thor Mining were down 0.57% at 0.87p.