Argent Finds Gold Beneath Historic Trunkey Creek Workings

Visible Gold Found Beneath Historic Workings

Argent Minerals Limited (ASX:ARD) has found visible gold in the second hole of its maiden drilling campaign at the 100%-owned Trunkey Creek Gold Project in central New South Wales. The gold was logged in two quartz veins at 91.8m and 98.1m downhole, below a section of historic underground workings.

The result is notable because the two veins showed no visible evidence of historic extraction or backfill. Argent said free gold grains, associated with sulphide, were observed along lamination planes and vein margins in Silurian metasediment. The company’s chief executive, Mike McKevitt, described the finding as a positive start, but the visual observations do not establish either grade or economic significance.

Historic Mine Records Match the Drill Core

Hole ATDD002 intersected the old workings between 86.8m and 89.2m, including an open void estimated at 2.4m downhole. Core recovery through the void was poor, and its true dimensions and orientation remain unknown.

Even so, the location and depth broadly matched the historic mine records. Argent regards that intersection as a calibration point for its targeting, particularly as the Trunkey Creek field was worked between 1851 and 1908 but has not been systematically tested by modern drilling. The company says those operations stopped when groundwater inflow overwhelmed the technology of the time, rather than because the reefs were known to have ended.

Assays Will Decide the Result’s Weight

Argent has submitted the core for photon assay, with results expected in less than 10 days. Its visual logging recorded gold abundance of less than 0.1% in the vein at 91.5m to 91.8m and less than 0.05% in the 97.8m to 98.1m vein, alongside pyrite and minor arsenopyrite. Those figures are visual estimates of mineral abundance, not assay grades.

The distinction matters. The reported intersections are downhole lengths, true widths are not known, and the abundance of gold across the full sampled intervals is uncertain. Laboratory results will need to establish grade, width and whether the visible grains represent a meaningful mineralised zone rather than isolated coarse gold.

Deeper Drilling Targets the Wilson’s Reef Structure

Phase 1 comprises 10 diamond holes for approximately 1,000m across the northern part of a 4.7km mineralised corridor defined by mapping, rock chips and historic workings. Drilling began in early September, and the remaining holes are continuing while Argent prepares a second phase.

The next hole is designed to test continuity of the same structure at approximately 200m vertical depth, below the interpreted limit of historic mining. That step will be more informative than the photographs alone: it should begin to show whether the mineralisation persists at depth, although the program remains too early to establish continuity or support a mineral resource.