Mineral exploration business Yandall Resources (ASX: YRL) saw its share price double on Monday after the group delivered an “exceptional” gold hit from drilling at its New England Granite prospect, located within the company’s broader tenure at its flagship Well-Barwidgee gold project in Western Australia.

The wide 78 metre intercept grading 1.2 grams per tonne gold from 96 metres below surface also contains a richer 5m interval at 3.2 g/t gold, and another 5m zone at 2.8 g/t gold.

Additionally, a second hole drilled some 170m away delivered a 14m intercept grading 1.8 g/t gold from 63m depth, including a 3m section at 4.9 g/t gold. 

Management noted that both holes intercepted gold mineralisation hosted within the targeted New England Granite structure, with numerous other gold targets at the prospective area yet to be drill-tested.

A third nearby hole returned a 2m interval grading 3.7g/t gold.

The new results follow a recently completed twelve-hole drilling campaign designed to test prospective structures at New England Granite, as identified by recent drilling co-sponsored through the Western Australian government’s ‘Exploration Incentive Scheme’.

Yandal has now received results from six of the holes, with the remainder due for release within the next four weeks.

The emerging discovery – which remains open at depth and along strike – has now been named ‘Siona’. A follow-up drilling program, likely to commence in the coming weeks, is already being planned by the company.

Yandal Resources managing director, Chris Oorschot, said:

“These results are exceptional, and may represent a significant emerging gold discovery within the Ironstone Well-Barwidgee Gold Project. We plan on completing follow up drilling at Siona as soon as possible to determine the geometry of the mineralisation so that the exploration team can begin to assess the scale of the mineralised system.”

Management believes several structural settings comparable to Siona could be scattered across the wider New England Granite area. Yandal has now started to evaluate the structural targets identified at the prospect, and more broadly across its wholly owned Ironstone-Barwidgee landholdings.

According to the company, the Ironstone-Barwidgee tenure hosts a strike length prospective for gold mineralisation which stretches for more than 50km. Notably, the project sits along a fertile geological formation known as the Yandal Greenstone Belt, renowned for hosting a string of multi-million-ounce gold deposits.

For instance, the Jundee mining complex operated by ASX-listed gold mining titan Northern Star Resources sits some 75km from Ironstone-Barwidgee. Production at Jundee commenced in 1995 with a resource containing about six-million ounces of the precious yellow metal still remaining in the ground today.

All up, more than 20 million ounces of gold endowment have been defined along the Yandal Greenstone Belt.

Separately, the company holds two other exploration projects, Mt McClure and Gordons, in proximity to operating mines and infrastructure in Western Australia’s proven gold producing belts. All up, Yandal has already defined a resource base containing nearly 500,000 ounces of gold across its three projects.

The new gold hits at New England Granite appear to come at a right time for the company with the price of the metal soaring in recent times to reach record highs of more than US$2,700 per ounce on Monday.