Great Pacific Gold Corp. is providing an update on one of its core projects, the Kesar Project located in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea. The Kesar Project is contiguous with K92 Mining’s mine tenements, with several high priority targets at Kesar near the K92 property boundary (Figure 1). Multiple veins at Kesar are on strike and have the same orientation of key K92 deposits, such as Kora, and exploration work to date at Kesar has shown that these veins have high grades of gold present in outcrop, very elevated gold in soil grades and are coincident with aeromagnetic highs.
“The results of the two phases of geochemistry highlight the tremendous potential of Kesar” stated Greg McCunn, CEO of Great Pacific Gold. “With our recently announced plan to focus on our core projects, we intend to direct our financial and technical efforts on Kesar over the remainder of 2024. The high-grade nature of the nearby Kora deposit highlights the potential of Kesar and our Phase 1 drill program is designed to test our highest priority targets.
While focusing on Kesar, we will continue to evaluate and advance the other core assets in our high-quality portfolio, including recent drilling at the Arau project, from which initial results are pending, environmental baseline work at Wild Dog and consolidation of our knowledge on the Lauriston and Walhalla projects in Australia. Longer-term, the recently acquired Tinga project also has the potential to create significant shareholder value.”
About the Kesar Project
The Company received notification from the Papua New Guinea Mineral Resources Authority (the “MRA”) of the grant of Exploration License 2711, which wholly covers the Kesar Project. The notice was received on November 14, 2023 with the Exploration License in effect from October 31, 2023 for a period of two years until October 30, 2025.
Exploration by previous operators at Kesar identified the presence of semi-massive copper rich sulphide mineralization associated with quartz veins on strike to the Kora gold deposit, as well as the potential for copper-gold porphyry prospects within the tenement. Previous operator’s initial rock sampling programs returned high-grade gold-copper-silver values (see news release date November 17, 2023).
Initial Rock Chip Sampling
Thirty-two (32) rock chip samples were taken in Q2 2024 from outcrop and artisanal underground works and returned high-grade assays including 244 g/t Au (underground working), 116 g/t Au (outcrop), 36.5 g/t Au (float) and 33.4 g/t Au (underground working). Of the 32 samples, 19 samples were above 1 g/t Au and ten samples averaged 52.8 g/t Au (see news release dated May 13, 2024). Recently, a further 17 rock chip samples have been obtained and assayed with a peak result of 94.3 g/t Au and 11 samples of greater than 1 g/t Au averaged 25.1 g/t Au. Generally, these samples were collected from the Eastern Vein Zone where itinerant miners are operating small scale mines though larger scale potential occurs as indicated by the soil sampling results.
Soil Geochemistry
In addition to the rock chip sampling in Q2 2024, a soil sampling program was completed principally targeting the West and Central Vein Zones at Kesar Creek. In total, the 332 soil samples returned numerous significant gold grades over a strike length of 5.5 km including a high-grade assay of 20.9 g/t Au (see news release dated May 13, 2024).
The initial first-pass soil program used a 200 meter by 100 meter or 50-meter grid and was very broadly based to cover most of the known prospective ground and to get an indication of the location of the most prospective larger structures. Gold mineralization was found in samples covering the entire 5.5 km of sampled strike. Multiple parallel vein sets occur in close proximity within each of the three main vein zones.
Following the success of the initial soil sampling program principally targeting the West and Central Vein Zones at Kesar, a second follow up soil sampling program was carried out in July 2024. The follow up soil program consisted of a further 667 soil samples covering the West, Central and East Vein Zones, which all strike northwest. This follow up program has further defined gold prospects in West and Central Vein zones while also discovering gold mineralization in the Eastern Vein zone, which is in part associated with the itinerant miners’ small-scale operations. The mineralization in the Eastern Vein Zone is open to the northwest where several parallel vein sets occur. More sampling will be carried out as the opportunities arise.
Upcoming Drilling Program
The Company has contracted Quest Exploration Drilling (“QED”) to provide two CS1000 P4 diamond drill rigs which are expected to be delivered to the Project drill site in October 2024 via a helicopter located near the project. Drilling is expected to occur from five drill pads spaced generally at 100m intervals along the Anteruno vein structure in the Western Vein Zone. Sectional drilling from the pads will provide coverage along strike of approximately 400m. The proposed drilling plan consists of 9 initial holes averaging 300 meters in length for a total diamond drilling program of ~2,700 meters.
Results from the drilling program are expected approximately 4 weeks after the completion of each drillhole and drilling is planned to take place for two months.
