Cracking the Code: Early drilling at DeSoto Resources’ Fenton project is showing potential for ‘major gold deposit’

Encouraging gold hits show gold mineralisation continuous along strike at the Fenton Shear Zone
EM and magnetic survey results will assist in delineating a potential southern extension
Diamond drilling is ongoing and expected to be completed this month

DeSoto Resources’ hunt for a tier 1 discovery at its Fenton project in the NT is off to a strong start, with maiden drilling showing the potential for a 2km-long gold zone.

DeSoto Resources’ (ASX:DES) project covers 55km strike of the Fenton Shear Zone, a major regional structure sub-parallel and similar in scale to the nearby Pine Creek Shear Zone (PCSZ).

The PCSZ contains about 17Moz of recorded gold deposits hosted in a 60km-long and 1km-wide, NW-SE trending belt. Fenton, in similar rocks, has none.

In the mid-1990’s, Homestake Gold (now Barrick Gold) undertook a global search for deposits like the +40Moz Lead gold deposit in South Dakota, leading them to Fenton due to its resemblance to the host rocks and structure found at Lead.

It led to the discovery of gold with the initial 20m drill hit at 1.74g/t from a down-hole depth of 423m, but this program was never followed up.

Until now

DES’ maiden 3,000m diamond drilling campaign is ongoing at Fenton, with three holes now completed.

Results from the first two holes, drilled 150m and 330m along strike from the two Homestake discovery holes, include broad intercepts of low-grade gold mineralisation with same geological characteristics as the Homestake discovery holes.

The stronger result was in FMD0002, which included 23m @ 0.37g/t gold from 557m containing 2m @ 1.78g/t gold.

With these new results, the mineralised shear zone appears to be continuous over more than 2km of strike with strong potential to extend it further to the south with ongoing drilling.

Diamond drilling is ongoing with the fourth hole currently in progress and expected to be completed in mid-November, weather permitting.

“Scale and strength to contain a major gold deposit”

DES MD Chris Swallow says these are still early days for the company at Fenton, and the team is encouraged that the exploration system works “giving us much greater confidence that we can target the mineralised zone with shallower drilling going forward”.

“Structurally controlled orogenic gold systems are never perfectly consistent in grade along their strike length, and we are confident that significantly higher grade zones will be drilled in the Fenton Shear zone, which has the scale and strength to contain a major gold deposit,” he says.

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Desoto Resources a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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