The company plans to drill 3,000m in 17 drill holes during the phase-one campaign with 50% of that following up historical drill intersections where the resource was open and the remainder on grassroots exploration elsewhere on the property package.
The initial hole was designed to test the depth extension, width and grade of a mineralised diatreme breccia in the vicinity of an historical drill hole that ended in high-grade gold mineralisation.
"This is a sensational result and is an outstanding start to our first drill programme at Sandman! The mineralisation intersected extended further down-hole than predicted by the current resource model, which had assumed that the diatreme breccia was narrowing," said Gold Bull Resources CEO Cherie Leeden.
Leeden said the challenge was to increase the size of the existing deposits and possibly to link them by drilling under the unconsolidated sand cover.
"We are using a lot of geophysics as the think it is going to play the biggest role in exploration under cover," she told Mining Journal.
"We have had fantastic success employing 3D IP in Utah and Nevada, but it is not easy to find a local outfit and we had to import it from Canada. It lights up structures which is key as there are not many gold deposits in the state that are not related to structure."
Sandman has resource of 490,000oz of near-surface oxide material grading 0.7g/t based on drilling from previous operators. Newmont produced an internal study which proposed making Sandman a satellite mining operation and trucking ore to its Twin Creek/Turquoise Ridge sites, which are now part of the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture with Barrick Gold.
"The positive is that they did a lot of metallurgical test work including bulk sampling so we have excellent recovery data. Half a million ounces is where you need to be for a heap leach operation in Nevada, but we are not going to commence a feasibility this year as we feel there will be more ounces out there. We are using this year to add ounces and then next year start thinking about a feasibility," said Leeden.
Shares in Gold Bull Resources are trading at C42c, valuing the company at $28 million.
