It reaches the resourcesThe redevelopment of its ‘Murchison South’ gold project as part of a strategic review has identified a number of open mineralized zones in its Blue Heaven prospect.

The review of the project, located near Payne’s Find in Western Australia, led to a theoretical repositioning of the Primrose Fault – a key mineralization control at the project – which revealed voids in the block pattern and opened the western flank of Blue Heaven to further exploration.

Reach says data gaps in the model will be addressed as a priority through infill drilling to confirm immediate resource opportunities in the open pit. In addition, the project reassessment identified other immediate drilling targets with significant potential in the extended project area.

The work was prompted by the company’s desire to conduct a strategic audit of its assets and their potential, as outlined in April’s ‘Critical Mineral Exploration’ investor presentation. In that document, Reach outlined its main rare earth, niobium, lithium and manganese projects in the Gascoyne-Murchison region and its Murchison South gold project in WA’s Mid West region near the Paynes Find.

Over the past two years the company appears to have focused mainly on its other assets further north west in WA, however it did refer to its “Primrose Gold Project” (now renamed “Murchison South”) in a corporate presentation . in the middle of April last year.

Both presentations relate to the Company’s first 2021 JORC-2012 Inferred Mineral Resource estimate for Blue Heaven of 1,035,000 tonnes at a grade of 3.2 g/t gold for 105,000 ounces of gold, which includes a high-grade component of 0008 tonnes2 at 4.7 g/t gold for 87,000 ounces of gold.

The company believes the resource currently remains open in all directions.

It reaches the resources CEO Jeremy Bower said: “The reshaping of the Blue Heaven Prospect provided a more accurate understanding of the underground mineralization and identified immediate opportunities. Target infill gaps within the revised block model will be prioritized to confirm immediate open pit mining opportunities fundamental to the monetization of our gold resource. Analysis of historical data further identified key exploration targets and growth opportunities in the wider project area.”

While Reach has focused primarily on its critical and battery minerals in WA’s northern regions, the precious yellow metal contained in its Blue Heaven prospect further south has been performing gang-busters, and the company reckons now is a good time to to monetize their gold asset. which he sees as having immediate growth potential.

The first step was to completely remodel Blue Heaven using common and multiple indicator statistical “kriging” methods, which more accurately assess the subsurface mineralization in terms of size, shape and orientation.

With methods incorporating detailed analyzes of a variety of geologic data sets, the new model uncovered previously overlooked opportunities for further project expansion.

The revised model presents a geologic and statistical rendering of the existing data set and was not intended as a revision or update of the current resource.

This will come later after other opportunities presented in the review have been evaluated and most likely after more drilling to fill in the gaps and test other expansion possibilities.

The new model presents a refined interpretation of the prospect’s gold distribution and enables the development of a more accurate, robust, reliable and scalable resource model and future extensions from it.

Previous interpretations of Blue Heaven assumed that the gold mineralization was mainly subvertical, discontinuous and irregular, with high-grade gold and quartz veins in a classic “pinch-and-swell” configuration that tends to limit continuity and tonnage.

This distribution arose largely as a result of applying an inappropriately high gold limit of 1 g/t gold in the previous block model, probably based solely on the day’s current gold price or a filter mode consideration . possible internal mining dilution, instead of an initial examination of the statistical distribution of gold values.

The revised interpretation from the kriged model takes a broader approach by incorporating all assay results, rather than just those above 1 g/t gold, and has produced a semi-continuous low-grade ‘cloud’ or envelope of gold mineralization enclosing high grade areas.

This is what often gives a general orientation to the gross scale of the mineralization, and although it inevitably produces an overall lower grade, the outer envelopes provide boundaries within which high-grade zones can be identified and can often exist at widely disparate orientations such as be “ scale structures on one of the main shear axes.

Incorporating all gold values ​​corrected the data set, leveled the high grade peaks and improved the continuity of the mineralized zones. It also led to a revised model showing that the overall mineralization dips more uniformly to the southwest and at a shallower angle than previously thought.

Compared to previous drilling results, the new model indicates the possibility that the Primrose Fault – which separates the Paynes Find gneissic rocks from the local greenstone rocks – may actually lie west of its originally interpreted position.

Reach sees the heavily sheared contact zone between the gneiss and greenstones as a significant exploration target that could host high-grade gold over potentially viable mineable widths.

One RC drill hole intercepted 3m at an amazing grade of 92.1 g/t gold and remains open at depth.

The grade and geology of that hole is consistent with the historical gold produced by the Paynes Find, which focused primarily on high-grade gold in often glassy quartz veins in gneiss, the primary target style for previous drilling.

Reach now plans to target voids in the revised block model to identify previously missed mineralization and immediate open pit mining opportunities and also to extend open mineralized areas along the Primrose Fault, particularly along the western flank of Blue Heaven, where the revised position of the fault offers new exploration potential.

On a historical note, Payne’s Find is a lesser known but historic gold mining location in Western Australia. The town was gazetted in 1911, the same year that the Paynes Find gold battery was built for crushing and recovering gold.

The town is named after the prospector, Thomas Payne, who was the first to discover gold in the area and also the first to register a gold mining lease with the Department of Mines.

Reach seems to be on to a winner with its new strategy, and already has a head start on an indicative resource that seems to have some of its secrets already revealed by well-focused work to reveal new possibilities.

As long as gold prices continue to hover around current prices or continue their recent meteoric frenzy, the company will have plenty of incentive to plug additional holes and unlock more of these secrets.

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