Advance Metals’ latest drill intercept in Victoria has assayed a grade a gnat’s whisker off half a kilo per tonne gold. The company is in rarified air in terms of high gold prices and grades, with the third hole in its maiden diamond drilling program, including a 0.7-metre hit grading 446 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 179.6m.

The hole also intercepted 3.3m at 11.0g/t gold from 156.5m, including 0.55m at 68.1g/t from 159.3m, 6.1m assaying 5.8g/t from 165.5m, including 0.4m at 75.7g/t from 168.7m and 7.5m at 47.9g/t from 178.1m, including 1.3m at a heady 271.6g/t gold from 179.6m. The last intercept includes the 446g/t hit.

The results follow hard on the heels of recent previous hits in Advance’s first two diamond holes at its Happy Valley prospect, where it initially reported visible gold in all three holes. This was backed up by assays from a nearby earlier hole that intercepted 11.5m at 160.4g/t gold.

Subsequent analyses from the first diamond hole - drilled 20m above the earlier 160.4g/t hit - threw up multiple gold intercepts, including 0.9m at 19g/t gold from 157.8m, and 2.15m at 4g/t from 177.8m, 8.2m at 22.4g/t from 186.0m, including 3.4m at 52.7g/t gold from 186m, which includes an individual assay of 1.2m going 93.2g/t gold from 186m.

‘Again we are seeing fantastic results returned from the Happy Valley prospect at Myrtleford.’

Advance Metals managing director Adam McKinnon

The second hole bored out 2.9m going 6.7g/t gold from 208.8m, including 0.5m at 36.6g/t gold from 211.2m.

Results from a fourth hole are pending, although the company reports visible gold at 231.2m depth and also between 250.5m and 251m down-hole.

Advance says the results to date highlight the existence of an “ultra-high grade” zone, which has the potential for extensions in multiple directions.

More importantly, the company’s recent run of sizzling gold grades points to greater potential further afield, most notably along the 13km strike of the Happy Valley trend. Less than 1 per cent of that strike has been tested to date.

Advance Metals managing director Adam McKinnon said: “Again we are seeing fantastic results returned from the Happy Valley prospect at Myrtleford. Hole AMD003, in particular, is now one of the best holes ever drilled at Myrtleford with three separate high-grade zones and individual gold assays up 446g/t.”

Advance cranked up a diamond drilling program in February at its 418-square-kilometre Myrtleford project, which stretches about 65 kilometres north-south, initially targeting the Happy Valley prospect in the project southeast.

The Happy Valley trend hosts myriad historic gold mines, which have generally been worked to only shallow depths, suggesting the trend might have significant upside potential.

The Myrtleford project lies within the extensive Lachlan Fold belt, a geological subdivision on the east coast. The zone of folded and faulted rocks dominates New South Wales and Victoria and extends into Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland.

The area has a history of mineral production, including gold, copper, lead, zinc, silver, and tin. Recent exploration has focused on copper-gold and lithium deposits.

These deposits include some historic gold mining regions and individual mines that contributed to the development of eastern Australia’s cities during and since the famed Australian gold rush from 1851.

These include Myrtleford in northeast Victoria, 282km northeast of Melbourne, whose gold mining history took off upon the discovery of alluvial gold in 1852, followed by the establishment of the Reform mine on Reform Hill in 1854.

The Reform mine became the most productive underground mine in the northeast and produced more than 21,000 ounces of gold. Dredging operations began later but faced profitability issues and opposition and eventually concluded in 1921.

Advance has identified four priority areas of interest, extending southwards from the Twist Creek trend in the northern extremity of the ground, through the north-south Magpie trend along the western tenement boundary.

The areas also include a small central-eastern Barwidee trend and an apparently distinct northwest-southeast trending Happy Valley area in the tenement’s extreme southeast.

The company has completed its current round of drilling at Happy Valley and has moved on to the Twist Creek trend at the northern end of the project, which features multiple mined structures that previously averaged 31g/t gold.

It has begun a drilling program to follow up previous shallow intercepts that include 1.6m at 17g/t gold, with 0.6m at 43g/t gold and 0.35m at 40.1g/t gold.

Advance believes many of the mines at Happy Valley lie on or near mineralised structures that may extend for kilometres along strike and have not been exposed to modern exploration.

The company is completing mapping and rock chip sampling across multiple targets at Myrtleford, currently targeting strike extensions from the latest drilling at its Happy Valley and Twist Creek prospects.

Understandably, Advance is already planning its earliest possible follow-up drilling program for Happy Valley and is awaiting results from rock chip samples and its fourth diamond hole at Happy Valley before finalising its targets.

Advance will be hoping to snag “four from four” drill holes showing visible gold and their attendant stratospheric gold grades. The market will be watching its progress keenly, particularly given the red-hot gold price environment.

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