The Beta Hunt mine in Australia is continuing to yield extraordinary gold exploration results, with Canada-based RNC announcing on Tuesday that it had intersected 7 621 g/t of coarse gold.
The high-grade discovery was in one of the first sets of holes that the company drilled at the Western Flanks shear zone, where a small section of the shear yielded a drill intersection containing high-grade coarse gold that assayed 7 621 g/t over 0.27 m.
The high-grade Western Flanks discovery is located within 45 m of RNC’s existing development at Beta Hunt.
“This result, which is the first high grade coarse gold found at the intersection of the sediment layer within the Western Flanks shear, is consistent with RNC's interpretation that the newly discovered sedimentary layer carries the potential for multiple new high-grade discoveries,” the company stated.
RNC said that it was, to its knowledge, the highest grade drill intersection by any reporting company since 2017, with only Kirkland Lake’s Fosterville mine and Pretium Resources’ Brucejack mine having yielded higher-grade intersections over the past four years.
In 2016, the Brucejack mine, in British Columbia, Canada, yielded a 37 117 g/t drill intersection and the following year, Fosterville, in Victoria, Australia, intersected 21 490 g/t.
The second high-grade intersection is located in the A Zone shear, about 7 m below the historic Father’s Day vein and returned 1 406 g/t over 0.50 m true width.