Warriedar Resources has turned up more than just gold below the historic Austin pit at its Golden Range project in WA’s Murchison region after hitting a polymetallic system that includes gold, lead and silver.
Aggressive, well-funded drilling and geophysical programs now await in a bid to explore the remaining open mineralisation. The company says its modelled VMS system is analogous to and nearby the world-class Golden Grove mine.
Warriedar says assays on two holes returned hits for both precious and base metals, potentially opening the door for a new base metal play. The best of the drillholes hit a 20m thick intersection going 1.98 grams per tonne gold, in addition to 7.2g/t silver and 844 parts per million lead from 160m.
Another hole returned an 8m thick intersection with 1.04g/t gold, 19.5g/t silver and 0.54 per cent lead from 144m, including a 4m hit reading 0.88g/t gold, 27g/t silver and 1.02 per cent lead.
Management says the results are significant, pointing out that they confirm Austin as a working mineralised system, producing precious and base metals within an interpreted high-confidence VMS horizon. It says the mineralisation is traceable through airborne electromagnetic (EM) data.
The company is now planning to mature its deposit via more drilling this year. It will explore the mineralisation, which is open at depth and to the north and south, by drilling diamond tails to overcome groundwater and will test EM targets on trend with Austin’s northern and southern edges.
Aerial EM surveys in 2014 revealed a bedrock conductor, 1.2km south and along strike from the Austin deposit, that now represents a high-priority target. The company will try to identify high-grade feeder zones by running downhole EM surveys in a search for conductive and magnetic-dense horizons that might contain some grade.
We are focussed on building our gold resources but believe the potential for economic base metal deposits on our ground is significant. VMS deposits can be very profitable, we only need to look a few kms to our east at Golden Grove to confirm this. If you look at the classic VMS model, we are in a cooler distal part. We can use ground and downhole geophysics to look for the core of the system. VMS deposits are great geophysical targets, generally more dense, conductive and magnetic than their surrounding host rocks. We will narrow in on the source of our polymetallic mineralization. Its game on for VMS. Warriedar Resources managing director Amanda Buckingham
Regionally, VMS horizons in the area are known producers and generally mineralise in clusters.
Deposits to the south include Capricorn Metals’ Mt Gibson gold project with an inferred mineral resource of 79.7 million tonnes of gold at 0.8g/t for 2.083 million ounces. To the north, Venture Minerals has also identified four high-priority VMS-style prospects.
Some 4km to the north-east, 29 Metals has the giant Golden Grove mine that is recognised as a world-class VMS system producing a diversified revenue stream of high-grade copper, zinc and precious metals, including gold and silver.
Warriedar has a total gold resource estimate for its Golden Range ground of 19.249 million tonnes at 1.5g/t gold for 945,000 ounces. Its Austin deposit resource estimate is 434,000 tonnes at 1.4g/t, giving 19,000 ounces.
Notably, Golden Range has historic infrastructure linked to a shallow oxide gold pit, including an 800,000 tonnes per annum processing plant, camp facilities and other utilities.
Warriedar is an East Perth-based company that operates in WA and Nevada in the United States, with a total resource base of about 2 million ounces of gold.
The company says its latest results are encouraging, particularly because base metal diversification within VMS-hosted deposits have proven to be highly profitable in the Golden Grove area.
With the VMS system now located and global analogue exploration techniques well established, Warriedar will be busy trying to build its resource base in the coming months and prove up some grade in its newly-discovered multi-metals system.
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