An area located approximately 40 km east of Peterborough, on Bendigo Station, forms part of the Nackara Project which has been set up over several exploration licences to explore for possible diamondiferous kimberlite intrusions that may occur in...
An area located approximately 40 km east of Peterborough, on Bendigo Station, forms part of the Nackara Project which has been set up over several exploration licences to explore for possible diamondiferous kimberlite intrusions that may occur in South Australia's Nackara Arc region. Regional geological studies and known occurrences of detrital diamonds and diamond indicator minerals within present-day local drainage systems, as borne out by the results of extensive past loam sampling, imply that this portion of the Nackara Arc has a tectonic setting favourable to kimberlite emplacement, with features similar to that surounding the Argyle AK1 commercial diamond-bearing pipe in Western Australia's Kimberley Province. To date only one primary diamond source area, the Pine Creek kimberlite field, has been discovered in the region, closely associated with mafic igneous intrusions, which appear to have exploited active Delamerian age strike faults within the Nackara Fold Belt as focal conduits for magmatism. However, the indicator mineral suite anomalous drainage dispersal area covers 17,500 square km amidst landforms which largely conceal the bedrock and have promoted deep weathering, thereby rendering conditions difficult for concise remote detection of shallowly buried Jurassic or older kimberlite bodies. During the first reporting period to 18th May 2001, exploration work on EL 2723 ‘Bendigo’ as part of the Nackara Diamond Project has included on-going evaluation of the region and the current understanding of its geology and structure. A number of figures were generated to illustrate diamond prospectivity indications, geophysical imagery, mapped geology, and interpreted geology of the region. The company believe that successful exploration will require a large jump in sophistication to penetrate the cover economically over wide areas, will require follow up of the slightest signals and will need to be focused in areas where structural data suggests kimberlite punch through has been likely. During the second and third years of reporting, to 18th May 2003, exploration activities have again focused on an on-going evaluation of existing of open file data from the area. An evaluation of terrain, detailed PIRSA mapping, re-processed quality aeromagnetic data and GIS recovered previous exploration data which has identified nineteen target features that warrant follow up. The JV partners believe that the targets can only be recognised through modelling the interrelationship different data sets and that the reliance on a single data aspect is ineffective. During the fourth year of reporting, no annual exploration report was submitted as is required. The report was not submitted because evidence of a serious miss-location of many features interpreted from aeromagnetic survey data has been confirmed. The data in question was a composite data set supplied by PIRSA that includes the BHP/Dampier 1979 survey with incorrect positioning. Submitted instead is a special report explaining how this has come about and includes the essential technical conclusions arrived at by cooperative discussion between PIRSA and Novec-Ammona during 2004. The consequence of the miss-location is that all previous magnetic interpretations of structure and stratigraphy supplied in previous reports and other Novec working maps are in error by 100m or more. Novec has thus declined to generate new drawings with this flawed information and realizes some previous correlations and conclusions about prospectivity are potentially misleading. It thus seems that presenting a further report with known errors before a full reworking of exiting maps based on a new image is inappropriate.
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