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(Sharecast News) - Precious and base metals explorer and developer Greatland Gold announced the start of the 2022 exploration programme under the Juri joint venture with its partner Newcrest Mining on Tuesday, in the "highly prospective" Paterson region of Western Australia.
The AIM-traded company said the programme would involve drilling three high-priority targets in June across the Paterson Range East and Black Hills licences.
Aerial and ground electromagnetic data review was underway, and a programme of soil sampling along existing tracks was completed and submitted for geochemical analysis, to assist in identifying undercover geology and potential subtle mineralisation trends.
Gravity data reprocessing, meanwhile, was aimed at refining existing and generating new targets, while "heritage clearances" were complete, with the establishment of camp infrastructure underway ahead of the drill programme.
The planned work was agreed between the joint venture partners, and was being funded solely by Newcrest.
Greatland said the Paterson Range East licence lies around 25 kilometres north of its Havieron gold-copper project, and covers 224 square kilometres of Proterozoic basement rocks prospective for Havieron style gold-copper mineralisation.
The Black Hills licence covers 25 square kilometres, and lies around 20 kilometres west of Havieron and 30 kilometres northeast of Newcrest's Telfer Gold Mine.
"After a promising first year programme, we are excited to commence on-the-ground activities for the second year exploration and drilling campaign under the Juri joint venture with Newcrest," said Greatland managing director Shaun Day.
"There is an enhanced, rich source of information available to interpret from including prior year's drilling results, aerial and ground electromagnetic data and the Juri teams have used this to identify promising high priority targets to be drilled over the next few months."
Day said the joint venture campaign formed part of Greatland's wider exploration portfolio in the "highly prospective" Paterson region, and represented "another opportunity" to add value to the company.
"In addition, we look forward to moving ahead with upcoming exploration activities at Greatland's other 100%-owned licences to take advantage of our strong position in the region."
At 1038 BST, shares in Greatland Gold were up 2.38% at 10.34p.
Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.
