Alkane Resources Announces Significant Gold Discovery at Tomingley Mine
PERTH, Australia – Alkane Resources Limited (ASX: ALK; TSX: ALK; OTCQX: ALKRY) has announced groundbreaking exploration results from its Tomingley Gold Operations in New South Wales. The company's latest deep drilling program has successfully identified a substantial gold-bearing structure beneath existing resources, marking a significant development for the mining operation.
Deep Drilling Reveals Promising Structures
The exploration drilling at Tomingley has tested a seismic reflector feature located approximately 400 meters below current resources at the Roswell Deposit. This drilling initiative extended a previous exploration hole to an impressive depth of 1,392 meters, intersecting what has been identified as east-dipping gold-arsenic enriched hydrothermal breccias and veining.
According to company reports, the Roswell underground resources currently stand at an estimated 5.5 million tonnes grading 2.6 grams per tonne of gold, representing an endowment of 476,000 ounces of gold. The latest drilling results suggest potential for substantial expansion of these existing resources.
Western Monzodiorite Domain Confirms High-Grade Zones
A comprehensive program of underground drilling at Roswell targeting the Inferred Resources within the Western Monzodiorite domain has been successfully completed. This program involved 21 drill holes totaling 4,019 meters of drilling, testing the mid-portion of the domain to a nominal 15 by 20 meter grid spacing.
The results have confirmed multiple high-grade gold zones within the monzodiorite, with particularly impressive assay results including:
- 5.9 meters grading 31.0 grams per tonne of gold, including 2.1 meters grading 78.4 grams per tonne
- 17.4 meters grading 4.30 grams per tonne of gold, including 2.5 meters grading 21.1 grams per tonne
- 3.5 meters grading 16.1 grams per tonne of gold, including 1.2 meters grading 45.1 grams per tonne
Regional Exploration Shows Additional Potential
Beyond the Roswell Deposit, exploration drilling at the El Paso and Westray prospects has also yielded promising results. Seven diamond core drill holes at El Paso and one RC drill hole at Westray all intersected quartz veining with gold-arsenic mineralization, hosted within the prospective Mingelo Volcanic stratigraphy.
Notable assay highlights from El Paso include 17 meters grading 4.02 grams per tonne of gold, including 0.5 meters grading 77.5 grams per tonne of gold. These results suggest mineralization extends beyond the main deposit areas, indicating broader regional potential.
Management Optimistic About Expansion Potential
Alkane Managing Director and CEO Nic Earner expressed enthusiasm about the exploration results, stating: "Our continuing exploration at Tomingley reveals both extensions to our deposits, which remain open at depth and along strike, as well as new areas of mineralization. This drilling demonstrates the significant resource expansion potential across the mine site."
Earner further emphasized the company's commitment to revealing the full potential of the Tomingley site, both near existing mine infrastructure and in the broader regional context surrounding the operations.
Tomingley Gold Operations Background
The Tomingley Gold Mine represents a significant mining development in Central West New South Wales, located approximately 50 kilometers southwest of Dubbo. The operation includes both open pit and underground mining components with a 1 million tonne per annum processing facility that has been operational since 2014.
Development at Tomingley has been based on multiple gold deposits including Wyoming One, Wyoming Three, Caloma, Caloma Two, and Roswell. The Roswell stope ore production commenced in April 2024 via an approximately 3-kilometer decline from the Wyoming One open cut.
Geologically, the Tomingley deposits are situated within a tightly folded Ordovician volcano-sedimentary sequence that has been altered to a sericite-carbonate-albite-quartz-pyrite-arsenopyrite assemblage, characteristic of orogenic lode-style gold deposits. Mineralized fluids appear to have been focused by differential strain in and around andesitic volcanics, with the brittle nature of these volcanics often leading to the development of shear-hosted sheeted quartz vein and breccia deposits.
The latest exploration results reinforce the geological understanding of the area while simultaneously expanding the known mineralization potential, positioning Alkane Resources for continued growth and development at its Tomingley operations.
