An area centred approximately 50 km south-west of Port Augusta is being explored for buried economic occurrences of gold, base metals and uranium primary mineralisation which may be genetically associated with the past emplacement there of the...
An area centred approximately 50 km south-west of Port Augusta is being explored for buried economic occurrences of gold, base metals and uranium primary mineralisation which may be genetically associated with the past emplacement there of the Gawler Range Volcanics and Hiltaba Suite rocks. The aim of the DPY8-28-Extension Tank drill programme, that was subsidised in part by a 2015 PACE Initiative collaborative drilling grant, was to test a coincident gravity-magnetic target located on the margin of the Roopena Fault Zone, a bounding fault on the western margin to a north-south orientated Mesoproterozoic basin comprising sedimentary and volcanic successions. The Extension Tank prospect was interpreted by EL 5012 licensee Renascor Resources to have potential for hosting a large scale IOCG deposit or possible disseminated sulphides formed by a porphyry - related mineralising event, a view based on evidence such as the presence of haematite alteration, anomalous copper and a high amplitude (6 mGal) gravity anomaly. The company's prior exploratory drilling had intersected broad intervals of strongly anomalous copper associated with haematite in metabasalt, including 8 m @ 0.45% Cu (in hole 14RETRC001, from 64 to 72 m), and, in a second hole located 300 m away to the north, it had encountered 42 m width of intermittent haematite alteration with trace levels of copper sulphide mineralisation (14RETRC002, 120 m to EOH). Before the 2015 PACE project commenced, the licensee's interpretation of its newly acquired gravity and magnetic survey data shifted the focus of exploration targeting, and resulted in modifying the proposed drilling programme to become a broader and relatively shallow testing of the targets, compared with that originally conceived (2 diamond drillholes). The subject DPY8-28 revised drill programme which was undertaken in July 2015 involved the completion of 9 inclined RC drillholes for a total penetration of 1580 m. These holes were designed to test the modelled gravity anomaly source body, an associated magnetic anomaly, and an historically identified IP anomaly lying on the western margin of the gravity anomaly. Although elevated trace metal values were recorded within several zones of mineralisation cut by each of the PACE holes, no significant zones of copper mineralisation were defined. This result does not fit with drill intercepts of elevated copper and some rare earth elements which Renascor Resources had obtained in its earlier work. The mineralisation found takes the form of disseminated sulphides and very thin veins of massive sulphides, but no continuity of this mineralisation could be established. It was noted that the thin massive sulphide veins have a similar mineralogy and associated alteration to massive sulphides intersected at the 1050East prospect 12 km to the north along the Angle Dam Fault. The drilling intersected rocks with compositions and textures that would seem most likely to represent metamorphosed Mesoproterozoic extrusive rocks (Roopena Volcanics), with brecciation and mineralisation formed in them which may have been contemporaneous with metamorphism, or which were superimposed later by hydrothermal fluids. The shallow nature of the metabasaltic rocks suggests that the gravity anomaly may be explained by the presence of a volcanic dome, while the lack of a large hydrothermal geochemical dispersion signature tends to rule out a shallow target. The potential for an IOCG style target to exist at depth remains valid, but if so, its detectable expression would appear to be masked by an indeterminate thickness of metabasalt.
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