Pembrokeshire

Sarn Helen Gold holds two Crown Estate Option Agreements encompassing 500 km2 of prospective greenfields land in Pembrokeshire where regional scale exploration is actively underway.

Work to date

  • SHG has undertaken two field seasons in Pembrokeshire during the summer of 2021 and 2022 utilising Cardiff University students. These field seasons have consisted of widespread panning and soil sampling programmes. All soil samples have been tested using a pXRF on site and a priority selection of these by Fire Assay, multi-element ICP and ionic leach at ALS in Galway.

SHG Option Agreements and extent of sampling as of end 2022.  A combination of soil samples, rocks chips (not on map) and pan concentrates have been collected.

Initial Findings

Panning has confirmed the widespread presence of gold at a number of targets throughout the Pembrokeshire option agreements with 100’s of gold particles recovered throughout both field seasons. Soil sampling in the Treffgarne/Roch area has delineated discrete arsenic and base metal anomalies at surface and isolated occurrences of elevated gold concentrations have been discovered in the Clarbeston area.

Selection of gold particles from Pembrokeshire sites (mm scale bar). Images courtesy of Rob Chapman.

Figure 3: Summary of gold found in pan concentrate sampling in Clarbeston as of end 2021.

Initial Findings 1: Treffgarne/Roch

  • Historic drilling by the BGS Mineral Reconnaissance Program into the Nant-y-Coy shales (part of the Ordovician Roch Rhyolite Fm) identified gold elevations in rock up to 2.5g/t over 3m.
  • SHG has recovered widespread gold particles in pan concentrates.
    • Gold from the tributary at Roch has a rough morphology and a small drainage basin suggesting transport distances of just 10’s of metres from its source.
  • SHG soil sampling has delineated significant surface arsenic anomalies associated with flinty rhyolite at Plumstone Mountain and Wolfs Castle and also with a fault separating Cambrian and Ordovician shales at Roch.

Map of Treffgarne/Roch panning and soil sampling.

Initial Findings 2: Clarbeston/New Moat

The geology here is dominantly Ordovician mudstones with minor sandstones conglomerates and tuffs of the same period.

SHG has discovered:

  • Abundant gold particles in streams
    • Some gold particles have rough morphologies suggesting short travel distances.
  • Elevations in arsenic and other pathfinder elements in soil samples
  • Isolated elevations of gold concentrations in soil samples

Map of Clarbeston/New Moat panning and soil sampling.

Ongoing Work

Over the 2023 field season a regional stream sediment sampling and rock chipping programme will be undertaken inclusive of two new targets at Solva/Llandeloy and Narberth that were initially identified from historic work by the BGS Mineral Reconnaissance Programme.

Additionally, SHG has been granted permission to and plans to continuously assay the historic BGS held drillcore from Treffgarne with the aim of verifying reported grades and fully testing a deep pyritised zone which historically assayed at up to 2.5g/t Au.

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The prestige of

Welsh Gold

So why is Welsh gold so prized? It boils down to scarcity of course—Welsh gold is considered to be the rarest in the world.

Wales’ last commercial goldmine has long since closed, and the Mine has diluted out the remaining supplies by mixing its gold with other gold bullion ever since. The royal wedding rings, however, are pure—the most recent are probably made from a 1kg chunk of Welsh gold presented to the Queen in 1999 by the Clogau mine.

A century of royal weddings

Royal Heritage