During the sixth licence year, on renewed EL 4354, no technical work was undertaken. Hillgrove Resources temporarily suspended exploration activities within EL 4354 – Wheal Ellen in 2010 to focus on the construction of the Kanmantoo copper mine....
During the sixth licence year, on renewed EL 4354, no technical work was undertaken. Hillgrove Resources temporarily suspended exploration activities within EL 4354 – Wheal Ellen in 2010 to focus on the construction of the Kanmantoo copper mine. During the seventh licence year, exploration recommences at Wheal Ellen primarily targeting stratiform/stratabound silver-lead-zinc mineralisation similar to that being exploited by Terramin at the nearby Angus mine at Strathalbyn. Work completed during the reporting period consisted of: • Compilation and review of historical data. • Reprocessing of detailed aeromagnetic data. • Moving Loop Electromagnetics (MLTEM) survey over the Wheal Ellen historic workings and interpreted north and south strike extensions. Sixteen 200 m spaced east-west lines were surveyed, with readings taken at 50 m intervals along the lines for a total of 186 stations. • Commencement of interpretation and drill targeting utilising the reprocessed aeromagnetic and 2011 MLTEM data. In early 2011, Southern Geoscience Consultants were contracted to reprocess the entire detailed aeromagnetic survey. The reprocessing was highly successful and confirmed the association of the Wheal Ellen mineralisation with aeromagnetic highs, and hence immediately identifying potential extensions or repeats to the mineralisation that were essentially untested. The Moving Loop EM survey technique is designed to detect buried breccia and massive sulphides and has proven to be highly successful in detecting mineralised zones at the nearby Angus Pb-Zn deposit, currently being exploited by Terramin. A single test line of MLTE was completed over the Wheal Ellen workings in 2007 and effectively highlighted the known mineralisation. To date only preliminary data had been received. However, initial interpretations using preliminary profile suggest that the survey was successful in detecting the known Wheal Ellen mineralisation. Additionally, several other conductive trends were defined, some of which are associated with the zones of high magnetics, possibly representing extensions or repeats of the lead-zinc mineralisation. During the eighth, ninth and tenth licence years, exploration activities were once again suspended within the tenement while the company focused its energies on the ramping up of the Kanmantoo Mine into production. During the eleventh licence year, Hillgrove resumed exploration activities within EL5627 (formerly 4354) – Wheal Ellen. One diamond core hole and six reverse circulation holes, totalling 180.4 m and 411 m respectively, were drilled in December 2014. The core hole intersected a narrow high-grade base metal massive sulphide zone within the Tapanappa Formation, 2.1 m thick at 7.5% Zn, 4% Pb, 0.6% Cu, 1.3 g/t Au and 76 g/t Ag, “typical” in most respects to previous drilling at the Wheal Ellen Prospect. The objective of identifying thickness greater than 5 m of massive sulphides down-dip did not eventuate. Hillgrove utilised a handheld portable XRF to make immediate assessment of the core prior to cutting and laboratory submission as well as with the RC drill chips. Comparison of the pXRF results with equivalent intervals of pulverised core show that the Niton method is valid, qualitatively, and semi-quantitatively. RC holes drilled along strike 200 m to the south failed to intersect significant mineralisation or alteration. A regional-scale HeliTEM survey was carried out in May 2015, covering most of EL5627 and ~20% of the surrounding EL5628. This survey is likely to generate new conductive targets. Most areas were flown at 200 m EW line spacing, but some broader 400 m-spaced lines were flown, and selected interest areas were flown at tighter 100 m spacing, total line coverage on EL5627 was 15.4 km. In summary, the holes did not provide sufficient encouragement to continue exploring at the Prospect in the short term, and the company will now focus on following up exploration leads elsewhere in the tenement. During the twelfth licence year, no exploration work was carried out. During the thirteenth licence year, again no work was completed on the tenement and the decision was made to fully surrender the tenement.
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