Gold Mountain (ASX: GMN) is ready to strike at its Mamba Creek prospect in the rugged highlands of the Enga Province in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as it looks to sink its teeth into gold targets with its latest exploration program at the Wabag project.
The company says it is ready to embark on a two-week campaign comprising stream sediment and rock-chip sampling, combined with a mapping program at the intriguing prospect, targeting both epithermal gold systems and porphyry copper-gold systems.
Mamba Creek was identified from a geomap program in 2007 and is the first time any follow-up work will have been conducted at the site. The sampling will assess known significant stream-sediment anomalies.
Gold Mountain says a revised interpretation of the geology and mineralisation at its nearby Crown Ridge target, which it has previously drilled, indicates a northerly source for the gold nuggets already recovered by the company and earlier artisanal miners at the site.
Management says it has also identified a northerly source direction for the Timun Conglomerate, an interesting rock mix comprised of pyroxene gabbro, diorite and tonalite. The conglomerate is a well-known gold bearing sedimentary rock formation up to 100m in thickness and exposed in several areas at Crown Ridge.
Gold nuggets have been found in the conglomerate, indicating a likely epithermal source.
Previous drainage in the area, believed to have run in a southerly direction, is deemed to be responsible for deposition of gold in the conglomerate. A reversal in drainage direction to a northerly trend is thought to be due to faulting, tilting and uplift in the area.
Management says major northerly-trending faults are in the region where Mamba Creek sits, giving the site similar potential to the company’s principal target in the area – the Mongae Creek-Monoyal porphyry system in Wabag, which is the capital of the Enga Province.
We are excited to be able to update the market with a firm plan to recommence on-ground exploration at Wabag on a new project with excellent potential. The Wabag project represents an exciting opportunity for GMN within an improving copper and gold market for a timely and potentially significant discovery and development
Gold Mountain CEO David Evans
The Wabag ground sits within the producing Papuan Fold Belt that contains several world-class porphyry copper and epithermal gold deposits. Porphyry deposits can often comprise bulk-scale operations with huge-tonnage, low-grade, easy-to-mine deposits that can stretch from surface to deep underground.
Epithermal gold deposits can often be among the richest deposits in the world, providing bonanza-grade gold shoots containing greater than 1000 grams per tonne gold-equivalent, with vertical depths for hundreds of metres. They often contain significant lead, zinc and copper resources in addition to the high-grade gold.
Management notes a major copper-zinc anomaly has been identified using the copper-zinc ratio in the stream sediment sampling, about 4.5km north of Crown Ridge, near Mamba Creek. It says the anomaly is similar to that seen at the Mongae Creek-Monoyal porphyry system and the epithermal-type gold nuggets encountered there.
With gold once again the favoured commodity due to its recent price surge, while many other commodity prices are in retreat, Gold Mountain is looking to strike at Mamba while the solid-gold iron is hot.
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