Augustus Minerals gets WA heritage green light for first gold drill program

A quartz vein boulder sample from Augustus Minerals’ Dodds target area which yielded an assay result of 122.8g/t gold and included visible gold. Credit: File

Augustus Minerals (ASX: AUG) has ticked off a major milestone, securing heritage clearance for its Music Well gold project after a successful survey with the Watarra Aboriginal Corporation on behalf of the Darlot People.

The green light cleared the final statutory hurdle and opens the door for Augustus to roll the rigs for a maiden drilling campaign at the project.

The 1345-square-kilometre Music Well project lies 35 kilometres north of Leonora in Western Australia’s prolific Leonora-Laverton greenstone belt - a district that has produced more than 28 million ounces of gold throughout its history.

The company’s land-holding is one of the largest exploration packages in the region and hosts multiple high-priority targets, prospective for gold, gold-copper volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits (VMS), lithium and rare earths.

In mid-November last year, Augustus revealed results from an 1175 auger drill program at site, during which soil samples were collected over the Clifton-Dodds, St Patricks and Golden Dingo prospects.

Results from the program expanded the geochemical footprint at Clifton East, Dodd’s and St Patricks and highlighted other areas still open for further work.

The sampling also confirmed gold-in-soil anomalism at Golden Dingo, setting up a further follow-up soils program to unearth new targets beneath cover. For now, the results have sharpened the company’s focus on the Clifton East area, which has been prioritised for scout drilling.

Receiving the Heritage Survey Report clears the way for Augustus to complete site preparation and schedule a drill rig to put the first drill holes into the 1.2km long Clifton East gold prospect.

Augustus Minerals Exploration General Manager Andrew Ford

The reverse circulation (RC) program, which is slated to kick off in the next week or two, will test the Clifton East prospect with about 1000 metres of drilling, comprising 11 holes averaging roughly 100 metres deep.

The target features a prominent 1.2km-long soil and structural anomaly associated with multiple parallel and oblique quartz veins hosted within a major east to east-northeast trending fault system.

The prospect also sits adjacent to a significant lithological contact between high- and low-magnetic granitoids - a classic setting for gold mineralisation - where large regional structures act as conduits for fluids, often intruded by later dolerite dykes.

Previous rock-chip sampling by Augustus returned high-grade results, which included hits of 50.3g/t, 29.8g/t and 21.3g/t gold.

Notably, the nearest historical drilling lies 5km to the west, leaving the Clifton East gold anomalism completely below surface.

After Augustus has run its maiden Music Well RC program, expected to take about three months, it will follow up the work with a phase two soil sampling campaign to further refine and expand its pipeline of drill targets across the project.

With heritage clearance now in hand and strong early surface geochemistry, Music Well is positioned for an exciting start to 2026 as Augustus advances its flagship Western Australian gold asset in one of the nation’s premier gold regions.

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