Marquee Resources Limited (ASX: MQR), an Australian mineral exploration company focused on gold and lithium projects, today announced that initial reverse circulation (RC) drilling at its Yindi Gold and Lithium Project successfully reached fresh rock beneath transported cover in the central corridor. This marks the first time the company’s drilling has intersected fresh rock in this area. The Yindi Project is strategically located approximately 45 kilometres south of Northern Star Resources Limited’s Carosue Dam operations in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields.
The drilling program comprised three RC holes for a total of 227 metres, a reduction from the originally planned eight holes and approximately 1,125 metres. The early cessation of drilling was primarily due to challenging ground conditions, including water-bearing sands within the palaeochannel sequence and unstable weathered rock, which repeatedly caused drill rods to become stuck. Despite these challenges, the two deeper holes successfully intersected altered mafic rocks, including chlorite-sericite altered mafic and dolerite with disseminated pyrite and quartz veining, below the base of complete oxidation, logged at approximately 77 to 86 metres. These observations are visual and qualitative, and not a substitute for assay results.
Understanding the palaeochannel cover sequence and ground conditions is crucial for future exploration. The interpreted deeper target zones at Yindi, however, remain untested due to the early termination of the RC program. Consequently, Marquee has submitted 55 samples from the two deeper holes to ALS in Perth for gold by fire assay and a 48-element multi-element suite, with results pending. The company is now assessing diamond drilling, incorporating cased pre-collars to manage the challenging cover sequence, as a suitable approach to test these deeper, ranked targets.
