- 01290.3m at 2.8g/t gold, including 89.6m at 5.5g/t.
- 02Gold extends ~170m below historical drilling.
- 03True widths remain unknown; JORC resource work planned.
Elk Range Mining (ASX: ELK) has intersected a mineralised envelope extending 290.3 metres and grading 2.8 grams per tonne gold in its maiden diamond drill hole at the Friday Gold Project in Idaho, US.
The result includes an 89.6m interval at 5.5g/t gold and a higher-grade 11.3m intersection at 21.4g/t, extending mineralisation beyond the depth reached by an adjacent historical hole.
Gold mineralisation continued to approximately 309m downhole, about 170m beneath the end of the historical hole, establishing a deeper exploration target within the Friday shear zone.
The drill hole followed the interpreted structure rather than crossing it, meaning the reported downhole lengths are not true mineralised widths, which have yet to be determined.
Elk Range plans to combine modern and historical results towards a maiden resource compliant with the JORC Code, with its first-phase drilling funded by a recent $10 million initial public offering.
High Grades at Depth
The standout 89.6m intersection began at 76.6m downhole and contained 37.1m at 8.3g/t, including the 11.3m high-grade interval immediately below the historical drilling limit.
Deeper drilling encountered a further 12.7m at 4.5g/t and 51.8m at 2.6g/t, including 22.4m at 5.1g/t, before the broader mineralised envelope ended at 308.9m.
The envelope incorporates approximately 14% internal dilution between its first and last qualifying assays, and should not be interpreted as an uninterrupted interval above the reporting cut-off.
Assays confirmed several previously identified visible-gold occurrences, including a narrow sample grading 268.4g/t and another grading 120g/t, reflecting the locally coarse nature of the gold.
The completed hole reached 336.8m, with no further significant intercepts reported between the bottom of the mineralised envelope and the end of drilling.
Historical Result Context
Collared about 8m from historical drilling, the maiden hole was c followed a broadly parallel trajectory to test the previously identified zone before extending into relatively untested ground.
Across the comparable historical interval, Elk Range calculated a lower length-weighted grade of approximately 2.7g/t against the earlier reported 5.22g/t, highlighting the variability of coarse-gold mineralisation.
The holes were not exact twins and their separation, structural differences and different analytical methods limit direct comparisons between the two sets of assays.
Historical drilling at Friday totals 386 holes covering more than 44,200m and outlines a mineralised trend about 430m long, although the new results relate to just one section.
Elk Range has obtained its first oriented drill core tied to gold assays at Friday, providing structural measurements to improve the placement of subsequent holes.
Drilling Targets System Scale
“For the first time at Friday we have oriented core, and it's showing us how the high-grade gold is aligned,” chief executive officer Edward Keys said.
“That makes every hole from here smarter than the last—the first hole proved the system; the rest of Phase 1 helps us understand how big it is."
The company is continuing its approximately 2,850m first-phase program, with drilling under way on a second pad to assess continuity along strike and at depth.
One hole was temporarily paused at approximately 151m following mechanical problems, while another had reached about 125m and will be completed before work resumes on the paused hole.
Initial assays from these follow-up holes are expected in late November, while re-assaying of the historical comparison hole is also pending.
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