By Paula Fabe

Maritana Minerals (ASX:MRT) has launched a 4,000m aircore drilling program at the Wilsons gold prospect near its Black Swan Processing Hub (BSPH) in Western Australia.

The program marks the first major drilling campaign targeting gold across a surface anomaly defined over an area of more than 2.5km by 1.5km. The prospect sits about 400m from the BSPH in the Eastern Goldfields.

CEO Grant Haywood says Wilson is a “compelling, near-infrastracture discovery opportunity”.

“Sitting within view of the BSPH and on a granted mining lease, any discovery has high potential to be a valuable future source of feed for Black Swan,” Haywood notes.

“This first-pass aircore program is designed to systematically test what lies beneath a very strong surface anomaly and to build the geological understanding for follow-up drilling.”

Defined through reconnaissance UltraFine+ soil sampling in 2024, the Wilsons gold-in-soil anomaly remains open along strike.

It coincides with positive indicators, including gold nuggets, gossanous quartz-vein rock chip samples grading up to 1.25 grams per tonne gold (Au), and historical drill assays including 0.4m @ 6.41g/t Au.

Historically, exploration across the Black Swan district focused almost exclusively on nickel sulphide mineralisation. This leaves the gold potential beneath the Wilsons anomaly untested by drilling.

Maritana says the current program provides the first dedicated shallow drilling coverage at Wilsons to test bedrock geology, provide geochemical coverage at depth, and assist in defining structural and lithological controls on mineralisation.

The company notes gold potential at Black Swan extends north onto exploration tenements it acquired from Nano Metals in the June 2026 quarter. Maritana will test these tenements following further surface sampling and mapping.

Assay results are expected in late September or early October 2026. Maritana plans to interpret the results alongside geological logging to define follow-up drill targets across its mining leases.

Maritana Minerals is an emerging mid-tier gold producer focused on developing the BSPH near Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia.

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