Riedel follows fertile gold track in Arizona

Assay result from Riedel Resources’ latest drilling campaign at its Kingman site maintain the company’s promising run of high-grade shallow deposits of gold and silver in Arizona, USA.

Headline figures from drill holes on the project’s Tintic zone include 3.8m at 18.1 grams per tonne gold and 201g/t silver from 85.3m downhole, including 1.5m at 38g/t gold and 482g/t silver from 85.3m.

Other highlights are 1.5m running at 17.6g/t gold and 17g/t silver from 26.7m, including 0.8m at 25.8g/t gold and 26g/t silver.

Riedel is trying to nail its case for open-pit production on the back of Tintic’s mineral lode.

Its latest drilling campaign comprised 37 drill holes for 2286m of drilling and finished in April.

The campaign was the company’s third at Kingman in the past 12 months. In an impressive burst of activity last year, Riedel covered almost 10,000m of RC drilling and more than 100 drill holes.

Kingman, on the eastern edge of the Mojave Desert, was previously mined mainly for its gold and silver from the 1880s until the 1940s.

However, it has experienced only limited exploration and drilling since – some in the 1990s and some three years ago when 11 diamond drill holes intersected high-grade zones of gold, silver and lead from shallow depths.

Kingman comprises several historic mine areas such as Merrimac, Arizona Magma and Jim’s.

Perth-based Riedel picked up the real estate in October 2020, when it secured conditional rights to acquire up to 80 per cent in American firm Flagstaff Minerals, that owned its rights.

Riedel has previously confirmed a 1.8km-long exploration target associated with Jim’s to host significant gold, silver, zinc and lead mineralisation as shallow as 1.5m below surface.

However, it’s Tintic site where Riedel is currently focusing and where a mineralised zone more than 600m long and up to 250m wide has been delineated.

Riedel says the high-grade area is shallow and varies between 10m and 80m depth, adding there are now 16 holes at Tintic that have returned assay grades of more than 10g/t gold – and many with very high silver grades.

Clearly, there is a blanket of high-grade gold and silver sitting just below the surface at Tintic. The questions are: how big is it and — just as important — is there a source close by?

Bohm notes that the drill hole that produced the high-grade result of 18.1g/t gold with 201g/t silver is on the south-west boundary of Riedel’s mineralised envelope.

Interestingly, the hole is also about 75m to the south-east of another drill hole, whose previously reported assay results showed 1.5m grading 16.1g/t gold and 191g/t silver.

The result potentially opens up the area for further extensions to Tintic’s already-large zone of mineralisation, Bohm suggests, noting there are still assay results from 16 Tintic drill holes outstanding. The results are expected soon.

Besides open-pit production, another Riedel goal is to unlock the “bigger picture” of Kingman’s mineral endowment.

Whilst Las Vegas is only 90 minutes’ drive to the north-west, Riedel will be hoping for a jackpot of its own.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au