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E79 Resources (CSE: ESNR) CEO Rory Quinn on Discovery of Gold Nuggets at Beaufort Project in Victorian Goldfields, Australia
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of E79 Resources — Mr. Rory Quinn. Rory, how are ya?
Rory Quinn: Gerardo, very good, thanks. How about yourself?
Gerardo Del Real: I'm well. Thank you for asking. I see that you are recovering gold nuggets, apparently, at your flagship there. You want to walk me through that?
Rory Quinn: Yes. Well, it's exciting. It's another piece to the puzzle. It looks like these nuggets are being shed from the Camp Hill Range, which runs right the way through our property. As I think you know, there's been over a million ounces of alluvial gold production out of the Beaufort property with no hard rock source ever found.
So we're seeing this gold-arsenic-antimony geochemical signature. We know we have a major structure known to host gold through the property. And now we're seeing evidence of gold present in real time. So I think we're seeing a confluence of indicators that have us very excited.
Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned in the latest news release that the size and the nature of the nuggets points to a local source. Can you expand on that a bit please?
Rory Quinn: Yeah. We'll do more work on that on the chemical side. But just at first blush, and having our geos on the ground and looking at the area, their feeling is this nugget in particular – the 1.9 gram nugget that's about a centimeter in diameter – has not traveled far.
So I think the theory that we're working on is that it's being shed off of that ridge… and these nuggets have tended to be found in the gullies below. So that would support our theory that a lot of this alluvial gold has been shed from this ridge.
It looks like the old timers thought that too because they were digging these shallow pits along the ridge. But, obviously, they were using more primitive methods than we have available to us today.
Gerardo Del Real: Interesting. You also mentioned that you're already narrowing into a primary target area which I imagine has to lead to new high priority targets that hopefully you drill out soon, right?
Rory Quinn: Well, that's it. Yeah. We're going to have an abundance of targets. We're now talking to a couple of drilling companies about drills that we can bring to bear at Myrtleford and at Beaufort. But, hey, the way we're going, we might need more than one on Beaufort.
So we've got the North grid, the South grid that we're working on. The central grid we've already completed. And now we have this Magazine grid that looks very exciting. So you'll hear a lot more from us.
All of this shows us we're in the right place. We're where we want to be. We're seeing the gold-arsenic-antimony, which is exactly what we want to find. It's that geochemical signature – the Fosterville-type mineralization – we're looking for.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, anytime I hear Fosterville-type, obviously, the devil's advocate, right? If I were to play that, I would say it's easy to point to it because of the nature of those systems and how profitable, obviously, those systems have proven themselves to be.
But you have to be encouraged given the early-stage nature of the work and the significant findings that you've had thus far, right?
Rory Quinn: Well, that's it. And, Gerardo, I think it’s key to understand the opportunity with E79 because… just as you said… it is a real land grab now in the Victorian goldfields.
Everyone's looking for this Fosterville-type mineralization. But it's important to understand that the land that we have is real priority ground secured in mid-2018. So it was picked up in the context of seeing what Fosterville itself was becoming when it was becoming this world-class mine, now reserve-grade, of an ounce per tonne that Kirkland Lake proved up.
And it wasn't necessarily in context of what we're seeing now with Fosterville South… doing a wonderful job of creating value with their exploration properties and really, I think, effectively starting this area play that we now see and we're a part of.
But I just want to make clear this land is not land that we just picked up willy nilly in 2020. This land… we planned this. This was picked up when it became available in 2016. My partner went about picking it up and finally secured it mid-2018.
And then we went about securing the Myrtleford property. So this is some of the best property in that area. I know because I know other people worked hard to pick it up and we're very lucky to have it.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm excited to see the drill turn and see what mother nature yields. Anything else that you want to add to that, Rory?
Rory Quinn: No, just look for more news. We know we're in the right area and E79 will be the first company to ever systematically explore this property, which is hard to believe given a million ounces of historical production – Fosterville-type mineralization – and no hard rock source ever identified.
So we'll be the first ones to really do a systematic and complete job exploring this area.
Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to the results. Thank you again for your time.
Rory Quinn: Thanks, Gerardo.