Irish mining firm Conroy Diamonds and Gold has discovered its highest ever concentration of gold-in-soil in Northern Ireland.
The discovery in Co Armagh has values of up to 1.53g per metric tonne of soil, which the London-listed firm said was the highest gold-in-soil values it had encountered on its Irish exploration licenses.
The area where the discovery was made lies within the company's 1,200sq.km license area straddling Northern Ireland and the Republic.
It covers Clay Lake, where a 28g nugget of gold was discovered in the 1980s.
‘We have long held the view that the Clay Lake nugget is clear evidence of the area's gold potential, and we have actively been seeking the source of this nugget for a number of years,’ said company chairman Richard Conroy.
‘These latest results, with the highest gold-in-soil values encountered anywhere in our licence area, may well indicate that the source of the nugget lies within the new anomaly.
‘It could well be the Jewel in the Crown for the company,’ he said.
