Why Golden Dragon Mining (ASX:GDR) Has Started Aircore Drilling on Gold-in-Soil Anomalies at Coodardy in Western Australia

Sonal Goyal

23 October 2026 05:42 PM AEDT

Why Golden Dragon Mining (ASX:GDR) Has Started Aircore Drilling on Gold-in-Soil Anomalies at Coodardy in Western Australia

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Key Highlights

Golden Dragon Mining commenced aircore drilling at Coodardy and Behring Bore in the Cue Gold Project in the Murchison Goldfields of Western Australia.
The company plans about 6,000 to 9,000 metres of drilling, with the final metreage depending on depth to bedrock.
The company has 2,833 metres of Reverse Circulation Drilling at Coodardy and Behring Bore awaiting assay results.

Golden Dragon Mining Ltd (ASX:GDR) has commenced aircore drilling in the Coodardy and Behring Bore area of its Cue Gold Project in the Murchison Goldfields of Western Australia, according to an announcement dated 23 October 2026. The drilling targets two gold-in-soil anomalies that the company says extend over more than three kilometres of strike along a northeast-trending corridor.

The company plans about 6,000 to 9,000 metres of aircore drilling, with the final metreage depending on the depth to bedrock. Golden Dragon says the program is designed to give a first-pass assessment of the corridor and to help prioritise targets for follow-up reverse circulation (RC) drilling. Aircore is a shallow drilling technique, and the results are not designed to define a resource.

The geochemical basis

The targets stem from recent auger drilling, which the company says identified broad, coherent northeast-trending gold, arsenic and antimony responses. These anomalies link the Curtis Find, Behring Bore, Coodardy and Piston prospects. Gold is associated with the pathfinder elements arsenic and antimony, which is the geochemical signature the company is following. The peak gold-in-soil value recorded within the anomalous corridor is 720 parts per billion.

The auger results are surface soil geochemistry and are not drill intercepts. They do not show that mineralisation exists at depth or at what grade.

Earlier results and pending assays

The company has 2,833 metres of RC drilling at Coodardy and Behring Bore awaiting assay results. These have not been reported. Previously reported Coodardy results include 12 metres at 6.5 grams per tonne gold from 44 metres, including 4 metres at 17.6 grams per tonne described as recent, 8 metres at 10.82 grams per tonne from 25 metres, and 4 metres at 21.37 grams per tonne. These are drilling intersections and are not a mineral resource or an indication of results from the new program. The summary of the announcement gives downhole intervals only, without true widths.

Tenure and project scale

The Cue Gold Project includes granted exploration licences E20/1071 and E20/1072, in which Golden Dragon Mining (ASX:GDR) holds 80 per cent, and exploration licence E20/1073, also 80 per cent but still under application. It holds 100 per cent of granted mining leases M20/455 and M20/3271, and has applied for a new exploration licence, E20/1122, in which it would hold 100 per cent. If E20/1073 and E20/1122 are granted, the company says its landholding will be about 619 square kilometres. The company says the project hosts more than 50 kilometres of mineralised shear zones.

Two of the licences are not yet granted, and the company has not said when decisions are expected.

Next steps

The announcement does not state the cost of the aircore program, how it is funded, or the expected date for results. The company says the RC assays and the aircore results are both pending. Final aircore metres will depend on bedrock depth. Follow-up RC drilling is described as a possible next stage, to be prioritised by the aircore results, and is not a confirmed program.

The competent person for the exploration results is Simon Buswell-Smith, a director and full-time employee of the company and a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists with more than 17 years of experience. The company states that it is not aware of new information that materially affects its previously reported results.

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