|
Tropicana Joint Venture
Click here for a summary of the Tropicana Gold Project.
The Tropicana JV comprises approximately 12,260 km2 of largely unexplored tenure over a strike length of 350km along the Yilgarn Craton - Fraser Range Mobile Belt Collision Zone. The project was initially targeted and pegged by IGO in 2001. AngloGold Ashanti was brought in to fund and manage exploration due to the resources required to effectively explore this very large and remote tenement package. The JV has a dominant ground position in what is shaping up to be a new Australian Gold Province.
A JORC compliant resource of over 5 million ounces of gold has been released and a Bankable Feasibility Study on open pit mining of the initial resource is currently in progress.
For the latest information on this project, please refer to the Investor Centre on this website; ASX Announcements and Quarterly Reports.
Karlawinda
(IGO 100% BHPB - CLAWBACK RIGHTS)
The Karlawinda Project is located on the southern margin of the Archaean Sylvania Inlier, some 65km south-east of Newman, close to the Great Northern Highway and gas pipeline infrastructure (Figure 8).
Figure 8: Karlawinda – Location Plan Showing Tenure, Prospects and Significant Drilling Intercepts
Drilling by IGO and previous explorers has defined a gold mineralised system extending over a strike length of 1.1km and 0.5km down dip at the Francopan prospect beneath approximately 190m of Bangemall Basin cover sediments.
Previously announced intercepts include 7m @ 4.6 g/t Au, 6m @ 4.5 g/t Au and 15m @ 3.0 g/t Au. Based on the extent and style of mineralisation this project is considered to have good potential for the delineation of a significant Archaean mesothermal lode gold system.
The current focus of exploration is on the Bibra Prospect approximately 4km to the north of Francopan, where Archaean bedrock is not obscured by thick Bangemall cover.
Bibra Prospect
Previous work by IGO at Bibra has defined gold mineralisation extending over 1km both along strike and down dip (Figure 9a and 9b). Mineralisation strikes NNE and is developed in a series of shallowly plunging NNW orientated shoots within a more continuous lower grade halo.
Supergene gold is generally well developed above the up-dip oxidised portion of the main mineralised zone.
An aircore drilling program comprising 109 holes for 6,516m was completed during the quarter to test the supergene and oxide gold potential over a 1,600m strike length to a vertical depth of 60m. Results of the drilling confirmed the potential of the supergene zone and returned a number of highly encouraging intercepts including:
- 12m @ 2.5 g/t Au from 7m
- 5m @ 3.4 g/t Au from 21m
- 7m @ 5.7 g/t Au from 45m
- 11m @ 2.5 g/t Au from 42m
- 5m @ 4.3 g/t Au from 6m
- 10m @ 2.6 g/t from 9m
- 9m @ 2.5 g/t Au from 27m
- 9m @ 2.4 g/t Au from 40m
- 8m @ 2.6 g/t Au from 50m
These results are considered encouraging for the potential of the oxide zone to contain exploitable mineralisation. Further drilling is currently being planned.
Figures 9a and 9b: Karlawinda – Bibra Prospect Plan Showing g/t Au x Thickness (m) Contours and Significant Drill Intercepts
Last quarter a pole-dipole IP survey completed over the Bibra area identified two IP chargeability anomalies having potential to represent sulphide alteration associated with gold mineralisation. Anomaly 1 lies 1.5km to the east of the main mineralised zone and is the larger and stronger of the two anomalies, whilst Anomaly 2 is positioned close to the surface immediately south and east of the main mineralised zone and exhibits a similar plunge to the mineralisation.
A first pass RC test of the targets was completed subsequent to the end of the quarter. A source of the IP anomalism was not apparent in geological logging. Assay results are awaited.
De Beers Database
(IGO 100%)
In February 2009 IGO acquired the non-diamond specific exploration database of De Beers Australia Exploration Limited (“DBAE”). This database represents the culmination of more than 30 years of exploration and the key assets of the database are the 292,000 surface geochemical samples and associated analytical results covering many mineral prospective regions throughout Australia (Figure 5). As DBAE was solely focused on diamond exploration, less than half of the samples were appraised for commodities other than diamonds.
The initial focus is on analysis of samples covering under-explored Proterozoic basin margins in Western Australia, prospective for polymetallic base metals and gold mineralisation.
At the end of the quarter a total of 28,385 samples had been submitted for geochemical analysis with a total of 26,369 sample results received.
This work has generated a number of anomalies in gold, base metals and other commodities. Systematic prioritisation and field appraisal of these anomalies are progressing.
Holleton
The Holleton Project covers an area of 1,257 km2 over the largely unexplored Holleton greenstone belt in the Southern Cross Province of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton (Figure 10).
IGO is exploring the project area for Yilgarn Star, Marvel Loch and Westonia style gold deposits.
The current focus of exploration is on two narrow shallowly buried north-south trending greenstone belts in the northern half of the project area.
An aircore program comprising 119 holes for 2,945m tested 4 surface geochemical anomalies during the quarter. The most significant AC results came from the “Symes Find” anomaly where surface geochemistry had previously defined a north-east trending gold anomaly measuring 1.5km long by 0.5km wide (Figure 11). A single line of aircore drilled across the centre of the anomaly returned a near surface hit of 5m @ 3.5 g/t Au and oxide intervals up to 8m @ 2.6 g/t Au corresponding with a zone of deeper weathering. Further drilling to define the extent of mineralisation is planned for the September quarter.
Figure 10: Holleton Project – Regional Geology, Tenure, Soil and Auger Gold Geochemical Anomalies and Drill Targets
Figure 11: Holleton Project – Syme’s Find Geochemical Anomaly, Drill Holes and Significant Intercepts
|