Superior steps up drilling drive at NQ gold project

Superior Resources is adding 5000m to drill efforts at Steam Engine after data highlighting the potential for a large-scale deposit at the North Queensland gold site. The company has released the first batch of assay results from an 8000m drilling campaign at the Greenvale project about 210km west of Townsville, which includes Steam Engine. It said the first hole at Steam Engine lode confirmed significant thickening down-dip, with a 10m intersection grading at 2.8 g/t gold from 58m. Drilling at nearby Dinner Creek also confirmed the presence of a large mineralisation system likely related to theSteam Engine and Eastern Ridge lodes, the company said. Significant orogenic gold system “The 2021 exploration season has started off strongly," Superior managing director Peter Hwang said. "With an 8000m drilling campaign and other exploration well underway, the data that has been generated has highlighted the potential for a largescale deposit at Steam Engine. “Drilling at Dinner Creek has shed further light on understanding the controls on gold mineralisation atSteam Engine and has also enabled an appreciation of the scale of the mineralising system. "Steam Engine certainly appears to be a significant orogenic gold system and in terms of mineralisation style and controls, we are drawing analogies to the large 14 million ounce Callie deposit in the Northern Territory. “Importantly and not unexpectedly, we are seeing a substantial down-dip thickening of the Steam Enginelode as evidenced visually by thick sulphide-rich alteration zones observed in several holes." Related: Steam Engine mine stacks up for Superior While assays from the first Steam Engine hole returned up to 19m of an ore-grade zone, other holes - for which assays remain outstanding - show even thicker zones of continuous sulphide mineralisation, up to 23m thick, he said. “These very thick zones of mineralisation are likely to substantially expand the total project ounces and are therefore a priority focus for the program," Mr Hwang said. "As a result, we will be extending the program by an additional 5000m of drilling, targeting down-dip extensions to the ore shoot zone. “At the Dinner Creek lode, although we didn’t immediately identify extensively mineralised zones, the results confirm that the system is very large and the mineralising fluids carry gold. "Considering the size of the Dinner Creek system, we are expecting significant gold lode development in areas where the lode intersects favourable host-rock lithology. So, the potential across the project is significant." Mr Hwang said Superior would soon begin a detailed ground magnetometer survey over the entire project area in order to identify the previously unknown lode structures. A feasibility study is underway for the Steam Engine project, with a mineral resource estimate standing at 1.73 million tonnes grdaing at 2.2 g/t gold (122,000 ounces).

Superior steps up drilling drive at NQ gold project

Industry Queensland

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