Mineral Jackpot offers both exploration potential and shorter term precious metals processing from spoil heaps at historic mine workings.
Exploration
Mineral Jackpot consists of five adjacent historical gold and silver mines in mountainous terrain. Recent field surveys have doubled previously-mapped mineralisation.
Rock chip sampling, soil sampling, magnetometer surveys and drone surveys over Mineral Jackpot are complete.
Initial drilling as part of the 2022 work programme, intercepted a 7.62 metre zone from 4.57 metres grading at 180.94 g/t silver and 0.315 g/t gold, contained within which is a high-grade silver zone hosted in quartz vein of 3.04 m at 418.00 g/t silver and 0.554 g/t gold, starting at 6.10 meters drilled depth.
Precious Metals Processing
In late 2020 Great Western extracted spoil heap material at historical gold and silver mine workings in the Mineral Jackpot Group, producing a small doré bar made up of gold, silver and other minerals. This has proved the initial concept of spoil heap recovery in the area.
A summer 2021 field trip revealed that the spoil heaps are materially more extensive than previously calculated, with 51 heaps in total, potentially covering 14,000 m² (previously 38 heaps covering 5,000 m²). Assay results from spoil heap material sampling at the Mineral Jackpot claim group were announced on 23 February 2022 and the announcement can be viewed here.
In March 2022 Great Western announced that the upgrade of the road to the Mineral Jackpot group of properties, to enable access for large vehicles, including rigs and associated equipment for drilling operations and trucks to enable removal of spoil material for processing, was complete. The announcement can be viewed here.
Western Milling LLC created in September 2022 for recovery of precious metals from pre-mined materials. Western Milling will produce precious metals from tailings, spoil heaps, stockpiles of pre-mined material and shallow ore. At a second stage, Western Milling will acquire material for processing from third parties, as no similar facility exists at present in the area. The announcement can be viewed here.
In November 2022 Great Western announced the results of an independent initial Mineral Resource Estimate for the Olympic Gold Tailings project as well as Exploration Targets for stockpile and spoil material at the Olympic Gold Project and Mineral Jackpot Project. All resources and exploration targets are reported in accordance with the JORC code (2012). The announcement can be viewed here.
In February 2023 Great Western announced surface work had started for the mill construction. The announcement can be viewed here.
In June 2023 Great Western announced a detailed update for the gold & silver production project. The announcement can be viewed here.
Great Western has a target range of 50,000 - 100,000 oz gold for Mineral Jackpot.
Geological mapping at the Mineral Jackpot target indicates the presence of mineralised sheeted quartz veins in host granite, prospective for narrow vein, high grade precious metals. Grab sampling of spoil dumps from former workings carried out in 2015 by Great Western yielded results of 5.6 g/t Au and 19.1 g/t Au.
Historic geological reports point to at least 7 subparallel lodes, prospective for Au-Ag-U mineralisation in both the quartz veining and the surrounding altered vein selvedge. Historical production has left numerous residual shafts and adits covering an area of approximately 0.5 km2.
In 2018 the company added 66 new claims to the eastern side of the Black Mountain Group. These claims cover the Silver Moon and Silver Bell prospects which have been historically worked for gold and silver.
More recent grab sampling by Great Western personnel has yielded gold grades of 15.2 g/t Au and 95.6 g/t Au, within in-situ vein material at the Silver Bell and Silver Moon prospects, highlighting the untapped potential of this area.
Soil sampling conducted in 2019 focused on identifying strike extensions of existing known veins, along with the testing of ground between the Mineral Jackpot and Silver Bell deposits. The soil sampling programme has approximately doubled the previously defined mineralisation footprint at Mineral Jackpot, with over 2km of strike length now exposed.
There is strong evidence to suggest that there is further previously undefined mineralisation between the Cabin Rock area, and the main workings, as well as a continuation of the Cabin Rock mineralisation towards the southeast.