Southern Cross Gold Consolidated Ltd. announced results from six drill holes from the Golden Dyke prospect from the 100%-owned Sunday Creek Gold-Antimony Project in Victoria. Best results included 1.6 m @ 59.8 g/t AuEq (55.3 g/t Au, 1.9% Sb) from 313.8 m in drill hole SDDSC203. The true thickness of the mineralized intervals is interpreted to be approximately 50% to 80% of the sampled thickness for all reported holes.
Multiple holes hit individual samples over 100 g/t gold, with SDDSC203's standout 1.6 m @ 55.3 g/t gold being the best intercept. SDDSC197 pushed Golden Dyke's western boundary 30 m to 50 m beyond the current exploration target outline, while SDDSC193 extended mineralization to the east and deeper. SDDSC210 intersected three samples over 10% antimony, with one reaching 227 g/t gold plus 10.6% antimony.
SDDSC203 and SDDSC210 were drilled as infill holes between existing intercepts and both delivered multiple high-grade zones exactly where expected. One additional drill rig has been added to Sunday Creek, with eleven rigs now operational on the project. Six diamond drill holes (SDDSC193, SDDSC197, SDDSC203, SDDSC206, SDDSC210, SDDSC211) were completed at the Golden Dyke prospect, drilled in alternating east-to-west and west-to-east orientations to optimize intersection angles across the steeply dipping vein architecture.
SDDSC193 (east to west): Three vein sets intersected, confirming Golden Dyke to the depth approximately 40 m to 60 m down-dip of SDDSC141. SDDSC210 (east to west): Six vein sets intersected, 10 m to18 m along strike and 40 m to 60 m vertically including two high-grade cores, one of which had not previously been recognised, returning two individual assays exceeding 100 g/t Au and three exceeding 10% antimony: 1.7 m @ 19.6 g/t AuEq (14.4 g/t Au, 2.2% Sb) from 468.7 m, including; 0.3 m @ 111.2 g/t AuEq (81.8 g/t Au, 12.3% Sb) from 469.5 m; 0.3 m @ 58.8 g/t AuEq (35.8 g/t Au, 9.6% Sb) from 471.6 m; 0.2 m @ 252.3 g/t AuEq (227.0 g/t Au, 10.6% Sb) from 479.9 m; 7.4 m @ 1.8 g/t AuEq (0.8 g/t Au, 0.4% Sb) from 486.8 m; 2.5 m @ 9.8 g/t AuEq (8.0 g/t Au, 0.8% Sb) from 498.2 m, including; 0.7 m @ 32.6 g/t AuEq (28.3 g/t Au, 1.8% Sb) from 499.4 m. Project Totals to Date: 255 drill holes for 119,575.01 m reported from Sunday Creek since late 2020; 85 composite intersections exceeding 100 g/t Au by applying a 1 m (down hole length) @ 5 g/t AuEq lower cut; 104 composite intersections exceeding 10% Sb by applying a 1 m (down hole length) @ 5 g/t AuEq lower cut; 46 holes pending results, additional drill rig added to site taking the total to 11 actively drilling on the project; 200,000 m drill program continuing through to First Quarter 2027. The Sunday Creek epizonal-style gold project is located 60 km north of Melbourne within 16,900 hectares of granted exploration tenements.
SXGC is also the freehold landholder of 1,392 hectares that forms the key portion in and around the main drilled area at the Sunday Creek Project. Gold and antimony form in a relay of vein sets that cut across a steeply dipping zone of intensely altered rocks. These vein sets are like a ?Golden Ladder?
structure where the main host extends between the side rails deep into the earth, with multiple cross-cutting vein sets that host the gold forming the rungs. At Apollo, Golden Dyke and Rising Sun these individual ?rungs? have been defined over 600 m depth extent from surface to over 1,200 m below surface, are 2.5 m to 3.5 m wide (median widths) (and up to 10 m), and 20 m to 100 m in strike.
Cumulatively, 255 drill holes for 119,575.01 m have been reported from Sunday Creek since late 2020. This amount includes five holes for 929 m that have been drilled for geotechnical purposes and 22 holes for 2,973.77 m that were abandoned due to deviation or hole conditions. Fourteen drill holes for 2,383 m have been reported regionally outside of the main Sunday Creek drill area with six additional regional holes currently being processed.
A total of 64 historic drill holes for 5,599 m were completed from the late 1960s to 2008. The project now contains a total of eighty-five composite intersections exceeding 100 g/t Au and seventy-four composite intersections between 50 g/t and 100 g/t Au, and one-hundred and four composite intersections exceeding 10% Sb by applying a 1 m (down hole length) @ 5 g/t AuEq lower cut. Southern Cross Gold?s systematic drill program is strategically targeting these significant vein formations, which are currently defined over 1,550 m strike of the host dyke/sediment from Christina to Apollo prospects, of which approximately 650 m has been more intensively drill tested (Golden Dyke to Apollo).
At least 115 ?rungs? have been defined to date, defined by high-grade intercepts (20 g/t Au to >7,330 g/t Au) along with lower grade edges. Ongoing step-out drilling is aiming to uncover the potential extent of this mineralized system.
Geologically, the project is located within the Melbourne Structural Zone in the Lachlan Fold Belt. The regional host to the Sunday Creek mineralization is an interbedded turbidite sequence of siltstones and minor sandstones metamorphosed to sub-greenschist facies and folded into a set of open north-west trending folds. No upper gold grade cut is applied in the averaging and intervals are reported as drill thickness.
However, during future Mineral Resource studies, the requirement for assay top cutting will be assessed. The Company notes that due to rounding of assay results to one significant figure, minor variations in calculated composite grades may occur. The true thickness of the mineralized intervals reported individually as estimated true widths, otherwise they are interpreted to be approximately 50% to 80% of the sampled thickness for other reported holes.
Lower grades were cut at 1.0 g/t AuEq lower cutoff over a maximum width of 2 m with higher grades cut at 5.0 g/t AuEq lower cutoff over a maximum of 1 m width. Sunday Creek is an epizonal gold-antimony deposit formed in the late Devonian, 60 million years later than mesozonal gold systems formed in Victoria. Epizonal deposits in Victoria often have associated high levels of the critical metal, antimony, and Sunday Creek is no exception.
China claims a 56% share of global mined supplies of antimony, according to a 2023 European Union study. Antimony features highly on the critical minerals lists of many countries including Australia, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and the European Union.
