The program also validated a historical intercept by a former project owner of 11.5m at 160.4g/t gold, which included a mouth-watering 0.6m at 2430g/t.
Advance is now set to drill at least six more holes at Happy Valley, targeting extensions to the known high-grade mineralisation. The next hole will test immediately up-dip from the visible gold hits in the hope it can fill out a resource for the high-grade veins.
Two maiden holes will also probe the company’s Sheard’s Reef prospect, 1.5km northwest, and a further two holes will target its Queen of the Hills prospect, 4.5km in the opposite direction.
‘… the visible gold mineralisation in hole 9 seems to correlate very well with the three high-grade zones …’
Advance Metals managing director Dr Adam McKinnon
The company says less than one per cent of its 13km Happy Valley trend has been drill tested, highlighting the significant exploration upside across the Myrtleford project.
Advance is off to a flyer at Myrtleford after scooping up an 80 per cent joint venture interest in it and the Beaufort gold projects in January. The project lies within the prolific Lachlan Fold Belt, home to some of Australia’s largest gold deposits, including the 22-million-ounce Bendigo goldfield to the monster Cadia-Ridgeway copper-gold porphyry in New South Wales.
The company is also advancing its high-grade Yoquivo silver-gold project in Mexico’s silver-rich Chihuahua region. Drilling at Yoquivo kicked off in May and recently delivered high-grade silver intercepts, including 3.55m at 249g/t silver equivalent and 4.42m at 446g/t. Yoquivo hosts a modest historical non-JORC compliant resource of 937,000 tonnes at 570g/t silver equivalent for 17.23 million ounces.
The company expects to have results flowing in throughout July from the recently tested high-grade epithermal vein system at Yoquivo.
The next few months are shaping up to be stacked with a steady stream of high-grade assays and news.
As the company ramps up exploration across its Victorian assets, Advance is not short of high-grade precious metals treasure troves at its prospects. And the ounces may start to stack up quickly, should the company maintain its current rate of drilling success. A resource could soon follow.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
