Includes 1.7 m @ 250.8 g/t Gold, 1.7% Antimony from 208.2 m
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 28, 2024 / Mawson Gold Limited ("Mawson" or the "Company") (TSXV:MAW, Financial)(Frankfurt:MXR)(OTC PINK:MWSNF) announces Southern Cross Gold Ltd. ("Southern Cross Gold" or "SXG") has made a significant discovery expanding mineralization 260 m west of previous drilling, representing a 19% increase to 1,350 m in the known strike length at the 100%-owned Sunday Creek Gold-Antimony Project in Victoria, Australia (Figure 4).
Results from six diamond drill holes (Figures 1 and 2) materially improve the prospectivity of Sunday Creek demonstrating that Christina has become the fourth high-grade gold-antimony prospect located 840 m, 480 m and 320 m west respectively from Apollo, Rising Sun and Golden Dyke.
Highlights:
Seventh best intersection on project, in 260 m extension from prior drilling in first results from the historic Christina mine.
These discoveries at Christina are located up to 650 m east of the exploration target estimation area.
SDDSC137W2 successfully intercepted three high-grade vein sets and significant visible gold. Selected highlights include:
1.7 m @ 254.0 g/t AuEq (250.8 g/t Au, 1.7% Sb) from 208.2 m, including
0.3 @ 187.1 g/t AuEq (184 g/t Au, 1.7% Sb) from 208.2 m*
1.0 m @ 372.0 g/t AuEq (369 g/t Au, 1.6% Sb) from 209.0 m*
SDDSC137, drilled six high-grade vein sets over a 54 m down hole interval (27m estimated true width ("ETW") adjacent to the Christina historic mining area. Selected highlights include:
3.8 m @ 11.8 g/t AuEq (10.2 g/t Au, 0.9% Sb) from 209.2 m, including
2.0 m @ 20.7 g/t AuEq (18.2 g/t Au, 1.3% Sb) from 210.0 m
1.3 m @ 36.9 g/t AuEq (35.0 g/t Au, 1.0% Sb) from 228.2 m
0.7 m @ 69.4 g/t AuEq (66.4 g/t Au, 1.6% Sb) from 228.6 m
Drillholes SDDSC131, 134 and 135 were designed to drill south to north as control holes to confirm the continuity of dyke and altered sediment (the "rails" of the ladder). A significant pyrite halo, altered sediment and dyke structure, commensurate with what is drilled for 1.3 km to the east, was confirmed. Selected highlights include from SDDSC134 (240 m west of previous drilling) include:
2.7 m @ 6.4 g/t AuEq (6.3 g/t Au, 0.0% Sb) from 110.6 m, including
0.8 m @ 17.1 g/t AuEq (17.0 g/t Au, 0.1% Sb) from 110.6 m
Ongoing Exploration: 60 km of diamond drilling planned at Sunday Creek over the next year. Sixteen holes are currently being processed and analysed with an additional five holes in progress. Five rigs are operating and a sixth rig is due late November 2024.
Mawson owns 96,590,910 shares of SXG (48.7%), valuing its stake at A$312.0 million (C$286.2 million) based on SXG's closing price on October 25, 2024 AEDT.
Michael Hudson, Mawson Interim CEO and Executive Chairman, states: "Sunday Creek delivers yet again in a big way. Our first drill results from Christina, including 1.7 m @ 250.8 g/t Au and 1.7% Sb represents the 7th best intersection recorded on the project to date. The new drilling effectively expands the footprint of drilled mineralization at Sunday Creek by 19% to 1,350 m.
"The historic Christina mine, which was mined down to a maximum of 90 m vertically below surface in the early 1900s, also went by the name of "Golden Dyke Extended". The old-time miners certainly knew what they were talking about. With our very first drill holes at Christina, we can say it is now the fourth high-grade gold-antimony prospect located 320 m west of Golden Dyke.
"The new drill results from Christina are reported hot on the heels of new high-grade discoveries made in mid-October from the third mineralized body at Golden Dyke. Both these new discoveries are located up to 650 metres west of our existing exploration target, which clearly demonstrates the potential for significant mineral inventory growth.
"We will continue to focus drilling at Christina in conjunction with our systematic exploration of other high-priority areas. Our strong cash position allows us to aggressively pursue this work while advancing our exploration upside with ongoing IP geophysics testing along the 11 km strike at Sunday Creek.
"With the ever-increasing geological understanding at Sunday Creek we are delivering high grade results at a faster rate. With 16 holes in the laboratory and five rigs (going to six in late November) operating at site, we look forward to providing further drill results and updates as we continue to unlock value for our shareholders from this exceptional project."
Drill Hole Discussion
Six drill holes (SDDSC131, SDDSC134, SDDSC135, SDDSC137, SDDSC137W1 and SDDSC137W2) reported here are the first holes from the historic Christina mine. The only previous historic drilling at Christina was from two holes reported in 1967. All holes here were drilled across the targeted mineralized host (determining the extent of the rails of "the ladder") and demonstrated high-grade mineralization within veins sets ("rungs of the ladder") up to 260 m west of previous drilling.
SDDSC137W2 (110 m west of previous drilling) drilled three high-grade vein sets over a 38 m down hole interval (16 m estimated true width ("ETW")) adjacent to the Christina historic mining area with two occurrences of visible gold noted in the drill core. The highest-grade interval (1.7 m @ 250.8 g/t Au) was intersected 175 m vertically below the surface. SDDSC137W2 was successfully drilled to recover core from a zone of core loss in the adjacent parent hole SDDSC137.
The hole was drilled at a higher angle to the mineralised veins sets (the "rungs" of the ladder) than SDDSC131,134 and 135 and the intersection of high-grade mineralisation at this shallow depth strongly indicates the potential for additional and even higher-grade mineralisation at depth, consistent with the now well understood Sunday Creek characteristics. Extended highlights include:
11.9 m @ 1.8 g/t AuEq (0.9 g/t Au, 0.5% Sb) from 166.9 m, including
1.0 m @ 10.6 g/t AuEq (4.9 g/t Au, 3.0% Sb) from 174.0 m
0.7 m @ 8.1 g/t AuEq (6.2 g/t Au, 1.1% Sb) from 181.0 m
3.0 m @ 1.3 g/t AuEq (0.6 g/t Au, 0.3% Sb) from 184.0 m
2.0 m @ 4.6 g/t AuEq (3.8 g/t Au, 0.4% Sb) from 195.0 m, including:
0.9 m @ 8.9 g/t AuEq (8.2 g/t Au, 0.4% Sb) from 196.1 m
1.0 m @ 2.6 g/t AuEq (1.3 g/t Au, 0.7% Sb) from 199.8 m
1.7 m @ 254.0 g/t AuEq (250.8 g/t Au, 1.7% Sb) from 208.2 m, including:
0.3 @ 187.1 g/t AuEq (184 g/t Au, 1.7% Sb) from 208.2 m* and
1.0 m @ 372.0 g/t AuEq (369.0 g/t Au, 1.6% Sb) from 209.0 m*
SDDSC137, (110 m west of previous drilling) drilled six new high-grade vein sets over a 54 m down hole interval (27 m ETW) adjacent to the Christina historic mining area and successfully intercepted spatially consistent high-grade vein sets with the wedge hole SDDSC137W2). Seven occurrences of visible gold noted in the drill core. SDDSC137W2 was successfully drilled to recover core from a zone of core loss in the parent hole SDDSC137.Extended highlights include:
2.0 m @ 1.7 g/t AuEq (0.7 g/t Au, 0.5% Sb) from 173.0 m
3.0 m @ 0.9 g/t AuEq (0.7 g/t Au, 0.1% Sb) from 180.0 m
3.0 m @ 1.0 g/t AuEq (0.5 g/t Au, 0.3% Sb) from 186.0 m
2.3 m @ 2.5 g/t AuEq (2.5 g/t Au, 0.0% Sb) from 201.7 m (core loss 200.8 m - 01.7 m)
3.8 m @ 11.8 g/t AuEq (10.2 g/t Au, 0.9% Sb) from 209.2 m (core loss 207.2 m-209.2 m), including:
2.0 m @ 20.7 g/t AuEq (18.2 g/t Au, 1.3% Sb) from 210.0 m
3.6 m @ 1.6 g/t AuEq (1.0 g/t Au, 0.3% Sb) from 215.9 m
1.4 m @ 10.9 g/t AuEq (8.3 g/t Au, 1.4% Sb) from 222.1 m, including:
0.3 m @ 38.6 g/t AuEq (32.3 g/t Au, 3.4% Sb) from 222.6 m
0.7 m @ 9.3 g/t AuEq (7.7 g/t Au, 0.8% Sb) from 225.3 m
1.3 m @ 36.9 g/t AuEq (35.0 g/t Au, 1.0% Sb) from 228.2 m, including:
0.7 m @ 69.4 g/t AuEq (66.4 g/t Au, 1.6% Sb) from 228.6 m
0.7 m @ 4.6 g/t AuEq (3.5 g/t Au, 0.5% Sb) from 233.8 m
SDDSC131, 134 and 135 were designed to drill south to north to identify the mineralized corridor below the historic Christina mining area ("Control Holes") and confirm the continuity of dyke and altered sediment. A significant pyrite halo, altered sediment and dyke was confirmed. These holes were drilled sub-parallel to the mineralized vein set orientation (drilled to define the mineralized structure) and were not expected to intersect significant mineralization. Highlights include:
SDDSC134 (240 m west of previous drilling)
2.7 m @ 6.4 g/t AuEq (6.3 g/t Au, 0.0% Sb) from 110.6 m
0.8 m @ 17.1 g/t AuEq (17.0 g/t Au, 0.1% Sb) from 110.6 m
SDDSC135 (210 m west of previous drilling)
2.0 m @ 1.9 g/t AuEq (1.8 g/t Au, 0.0% Sb) from 78.8 m
SDDSC131 (250 m west of previous drilling), successfully intercepted the dyke and altered sediment host structure.
3.7 m @ 1.0 g/t AuEq (0.7 g/t Au, 0.2% Sb) from 186.9 m
Additionally, a further hole SDDSC137W1 is reported. This hole was abandoned as it failed to recover the zone of core loss in the parent hole SDDSC137.
Pending Results and Update
16 holes (SDDSC050W1, 050W2, 092W1, 092W2, 092W3, 129, 133, 136, 139-146) are currently being processed and analyzed, with five holes (SDDSC120W1, 146W1, 147, 149, 150) in progress (Figure 1 and 2).
Exploration Target
On January 23, 2024, SXG announced the maiden gold and antimony Exploration Target at its flagship 100%-owned Sunday Creek Project in Victoria, Australia. The Exploration Target ranges reported are shown in Table 1. Notably, the Exploration Target was constrained to the current drill footprint at Apollo and Rising Sun as they contain sufficient drilling to determine continuity and infer grade ranges. This represents approximately one third to one half the strike of the main drill area and significant potential exists to increase the size of the exploration target with high grade drill results drilled for up to 450 m beyond the Exploration Target area. Drilling since January has significantly expanded the footprint of mineralization beyond the bounds of the exploration target area, especially including SDDSC130 announced in this press release (Figure 2).
Table 1. Sunday Creek Exploration Target for Apollo and Rising Sun at the Sunday Creek Project
The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Target is conceptual in nature and therefore is an approximation. There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource. The Exploration Target has been prepared and reported in accordance with the 2012 edition of the JORC Code.
Range | Tonnes (Mt) | AuEq g/t* | Au g/t | Sb % | Au Eq (Moz) | Au (Moz) | Sb (kt) |
| Lower Case | 4.4 | 7.2 | 5.3 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 0.74 | 53.5 |
| Upper Case | 5.1 | 9.7 | 7.8 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 1.28 | 62.8 |
The potential quantity and grade of the Exploration Target is conceptual in nature and therefore is an approximation. There has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the estimation of a Mineral Resource. The Exploration Target has been prepared and reported in accordance with the 2012 edition of the JORC Code.
Further Information
No upper gold grade cut is applied in the averaging and intervals are reported as drill thickness. However, during future Mineral Resource studies, the requirement for assay top cutting will be assessed. The Company notes that due to rounding of assay results to one significant figure, minor variations in calculated composite grades may occur.
Figures 1 to 4 show project location, plan and longitudinal views of drill results reported here and Tables 2 to 4 provide collar and assay data. The true thickness of the mineralised intervals reported individually as estimated true widths ("ETW"), otherwise they are interpreted to be approximately 25% to 50% of the sampled thickness for other reported holes. Lower grades were cut at 1.0 g/t AuEq lower cutoff over a maximum width of 2 m with higher grades cut at 5.0 g/t AuEq lower cutoff over a maximum of 1 m width unless specified unless otherwise* specified to demonstrate higher grade assays.
About Sunday Creek
The Sunday Creek epizonal-style gold project is located 60 km north of Melbourne within 19,365 hectares of granted exploration tenements. SXG is also the freehold landholder of 133.29 hectares that form the key portion in and around the main drilled area at the Sunday Creek Project.
Gold and antimony form in a relay of vein sets that cut across a steeply dipping zone of intensely altered rocks (the "host"). When observed from above, the host resembles the side rails of a ladder, where the sub-vertical mineralised vein sets are the rungs that extend from surface to depth. At Apollo and Rising Sun these individual ‘rungs' have been defined over 600 m depth extent from surface to 1,100 m below surface, are 2.5 m to 3.5 m wide (median widths) (and up to 10 m), and 20 m to 100 m in strike.
Cumulatively, 141 drill holes for 63,087.09 m have been reported by SXG (and Mawson Gold Ltd) from Sunday Creek since late 2020. An additional 12 holes for 582.55 m from Sunday Creek were abandoned due to deviation or hole conditions. Fourteen drillholes for 2,383 m have been reported regionally outside of the main Sunday Creek drill area. A total of 64 historic drill holes for 5,599 m were completed from the late 1960s to 2008. The project now contains a total of forty-seven (47) >100 g/t AuEq x m and fifty-four (54) >50 to 100 g/t AuEq x m drill holes by applying a 2 m @ 1 g/t lower cut.
Our systematic drill program is strategically targeting these significant vein formations, initially these have been defined over 1,350 m strike of the host from Christina to Apollo prospects, of which approximately 620 m has been more intensively drill tested (Rising Sun to Apollo). At least 64 ‘rungs' have been defined to date, defined by high-grade intercepts (20 g/t to >7,330 g/t Au) along with lower grade edges. Ongoing step-out drilling is aiming to uncover the potential extent of this mineralised system.
Geologically, the project is located within the Melbourne Structural Zone in the Lachlan Fold Belt. The regional host to the Sunday Creek mineralisation is an interbedded turbidite sequence of siltstones and minor sandstones metamorphosed to sub-greenschist facies and folded into a set of open north-west trending folds.
Further Information
Further discussion and analysis of the Sunday Creek project by Southern Cross Gold is available on the SXG website at www.southerncrossgold.com.au.
Critical Metal Epizonal Gold-Antimony Deposits
Sunday Creek is an epizonal gold-antimony deposit formed in the late Devonian (like Fosterville, Costerfield and Redcastle), 60 million years later than mesozonal gold systems formed in Victoria (for example Ballarat and Bendigo). Epizonal deposits are a form of orogenic gold deposit classified according to their depth of formation: epizonal (<6 km), mesozonal (6-12 km) and hypozonal (>12 km).
Epizonal deposits in Victoria often have associated high levels of the critical metal, antimony, and Sunday Creek is no exception. China claims a 56 per cent share of global mined supplies of antimony, according to a 2023 European Union study. Antimony features highly on the critical minerals lists of many countries including Australia, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and the European Union. Australia ranks seventh for antimony production despite all production coming from a single mine at Costerfield in Victoria, located nearby to all SXG projects. Antimony alloys with lead and tin which results in improved properties for solders, munitions, bearings and batteries. Antimony is a prominent additive for halogen-containing flame retardants. Adequate supplies of antimony are critical to the world's energy transition, and to the high-tech industry, especially the semi-conductor and defence sectors where it is a critical additive to primers in munitions.
In August 2024, the Chinese government announced it will place export limits on antimony and antimony products. This will put pressure on Western defence supply chains and negatively affect the supply of the metal and push up pricing given China's dominance of the supply of the metal in the global markets. This is positive for SXG as we are likely to have one of the very few large and high-quality projects of antimony in the western world that can feed western demand into the future.
Antimony represents approximately 20% in situ recoverable value of Sunday Creek at an AuEq of 1.88.
Technical Background and Qualified Person
The Qualified Person, Michael Hudson, Executive Chairman and a director of Mawson Gold, and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, has reviewed, verified and approved the technical contents of this release.
Analytical samples are transported to the Bendigo facility of On Site Laboratory Services ("On Site") which operates under both an ISO 9001 and NATA quality systems. Samples were prepared and analyzed for gold using the fire assay technique (PE01S method; 25 gram charge), followed by measuring the gold in solution with flame AAS equipment. Samples for multi-element analysis (BM011 and over-range methods as required) use aqua regia digestion and ICP-MS analysis. The QA/QC program of Southern Cross Gold consists of the systematic insertion of certified standards of known gold content, blanks within interpreted mineralized rock and quarter core duplicates. In addition, On Site inserts blanks and standards into the analytical process.
MAW considers that both gold and antimony that are included in the gold equivalent calculation ("AuEq") have reasonable potential to be recovered at Sunday Creek, given current geochemical understanding, historic production statistics and geologically analogous mining operations. Historically, ore from Sunday Creek was treated onsite or shipped to the Costerfield mine, located 54 km to the northwest of the project, for processing during WW1. The Costerfield mine corridor, now owned by Mandalay Resources Ltd contains two million ounces of equivalent gold (Mandalay Q3 2021 Results), and in 2020 was the sixth highest-grade global underground mine and a top 5 global producer of antimony.
MAW considers that it is appropriate to adopt the same gold equivalent variables as Mandalay Resources Ltd in its Mandalay Technical Report, 2024 dated March 28, 2024. The gold equivalence formula used by Mandalay Resources was calculated using Costerfield's 2023 production costs, using a gold price of US$1,900 per ounce, an antimony price of US$12,000 per tonne and 2023 total year metal recoveries of 94% for gold and 89% for antimony, and is as follows:
