An area centred ~70 km north-west of Tarcoola is being explored for possible buried economic iron ore (particularly haematite DSO) and for buried copper-gold or copper-nickel-chromium massive sulphide mineralisation that may have formed within...
An area centred ~70 km north-west of Tarcoola is being explored for possible buried economic iron ore (particularly haematite DSO) and for buried copper-gold or copper-nickel-chromium massive sulphide mineralisation that may have formed within Archaean or Proterozoic basement rocks. The main potential host rock is thought to be the Proterozoic Muckanippie Anorthosite Complex, within the cover above which a number of previous explorers have detected significant nickel geochemical anomalism. During the first year of tenure, work consisted of conducting an office-based review of historical exploration records, and acquiring a total of 85.8 line km of ground magnetic surveys during July-August 2013, with readings taken at 5 m station intervals along 60 traverse lines spaced 200 m apart which crossed five historically recognised magnetic anomaly prospects. Following later geophysical modelling of the survey data, three of the prospects (Duke, Nardoo and Regal) were selected for follow-up exploratory aircore drilling, because multiple untested subsidiary magnetic features had been newly delineated at each one. During licence Year 2, a programme of exploratory aircore traverse drilling was performed during April-May 2014, when 59 vertical holes with a combined total penetration of 2569 m were put in to test four selected prospects. Successful results were obtained at the Nardoo South and Duke prospects. From 26 holes completed on three E-W traverses at Nardoo South, those on the southernmost traverse confirmed an anomalous zone of nickel found by a previous RAB drilling campaign conducted by Tasman Resources in 2007. The highest nickel assay values of up to 0.12% Ni were returned from close to the surface. A visible dark grey sulphide mineral was reported in the bottomhole sample drill chips of hole NSAC14. At the Duke prospect, a traverse of 10 holes was designed to test the basement where the 2013 ground magnetic survey had defined an intense NNE trending magnetic anomaly with a strike extent of 2.3 km. That drilling revealed weakly anomalous nickel to 345 ppm Ni and iron contents up to 28% Fe. However, the most significant assay result, but for gold, was obtained from hole DAC05, where an intercept of 2 m @ 0.54 g/t Au was made from 32 m depth. It was decided to conduct surface geochemical sampling at both of these prospects prior to doing any follow-up drilling. During Licence Year 3, no field work was done. WPG Resources planned to conduct a review of the gold potential of EL 5154, given that the company was about to acquire ownership of the Challenger gold mine. An ongoing shortage of funds meant that no work was done on the subject licence during the succeeding four years. Conceptual aircore drilling programmes were prepared for the Nardoo and Prince prospects for evaluating their Ni-Cu sulphide potential, and for the Duke prospect for gold, but these drilling campaigns did not eventuate before the licensee went into receivership on 30/7/2018. On 1/11/2019, most of the South Australian mineral tenements held by WPG Resources were bought by Barton Gold Pty Ltd, and became held through a subsidiary company, Roma Resources Pty Ltd. However, when implementing this transaction, Barton Gold chose not to purchase renewed EL 6147 Muckanippie. Consequently, the receivers and administrators for WPG Resources allowed tenure of EL 6147 to lapse at its next expiry anniversary (end of Year 7).
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