Microsoft Word - EPM 11237 Relinquishment Report 2008.doc · Web viewINTRODUCTION. The Agate Creek...

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1 RENISON CONSOLIDATED MINES NL ACN 003 049 714 Mail Address GPO Box 5268 Brisbane Qld 4001 Level 5 Santos House 60 Edward St Brisbane Qld 4000 Phone: (07) 3303 0630 Fax: (07) 3303 0601 Email: [email protected] AGATE CREEK PROJECT EPM 11237 BAR CREEK RELINQUISHMENT REPORT ON Block Sub- Block 2444 Q R S V 2516 F 2515 P Table 1. Relinquished Sub-blocks Author: Scott Hall – Exploration Manager Prue Kobiolke Project Geologist Tenure: Renison Consolidated Mines NL – Manager currently 82% earned Plutonic Operations Ltd

Transcript of Microsoft Word - EPM 11237 Relinquishment Report 2008.doc · Web viewINTRODUCTION. The Agate Creek...

Page 1: Microsoft Word - EPM 11237 Relinquishment Report 2008.doc · Web viewINTRODUCTION. The Agate Creek Project comprises four EPM’s, EPM 9632 Cave Creek, EPM 10719 Little John, EPM

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RENISON CONSOLIDATED MINES NLACN 003 049 714

Mail Address GPO Box

5268Brisbane Qld 4001

Level 5 Santos House 60 Edward St

Brisbane Qld 4000

Phone: (07) 3303 0630Fax: (07) 3303 0601

Email: [email protected]

AGATE CREEK PROJECT

EPM 11237 BAR CREEK

RELINQUISHMENT REPORT ON

Block Sub- Block2444 Q R S V2516 F2515 P

Table 1. Relinquished Sub-blocks

Author: Scott Hall – Exploration Manager Prue Kobiolke – Project Geologist

Tenure: Renison Consolidated Mines NL– Manager currently 82% earned

Plutonic Operations Ltd

Submitted By: Renison Consolidated Mines NLLevel 560 Edward StBrisbane QLD 4000

Date: January 2008

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SUMMARY

EPM 11237 along with EPM’s 9632, 10719 and 11238 are currently held by Plutonic Operations Ltd a wholly owned subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation. Renison Consolidated Mines NL became managers and operators of the project in November 2003 after entering into the Agate Creek Farmin and Joint Venture Agreement with Plutonic.

The Agate Creek Project now covers since relinquishment an area of 358 km2 and is located 340km west of Townsville in north Queensland. Epithermal gold mineralisation is genetically related to Permo-Carboniferous sub-volcanic intrusives that have intruded the Siluro-Devonian aged Robin Hood Granodiorite and Lower Proterozoic basement metasediments and metabasites.

The exploration history of the current project commenced in 1993 with the discovery of the main epithermal mineralising system by CRA (Rio Tinto). Since then the area has been explored by Homestake, Normandy and Leyshon Resources prior to Renison managing the project. Work carried out by the previous explorers includes soil, rock chip and stream sediment geochemistry as well as airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys and a dipole-dipole IP survey. A total of 409 RC and diamond drillholes were completed within the Sherwood, Sherwood West, Sherwood South and Nottingham prospects.

Due to the poor geochemical results from previous Rockchip, stream sediment and soil samples collected and by aeromagnetic, aster, ikonis and Landsat analysis, Renison is relinquishing 20 sub-blocks from the tenement. Exploration activities conducted on the sub-blocks relinquished from EPM 11237 were restricted to nil- impact geological reconaissance only.

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SUMMARY..............................................................................................................................................2

1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................4

2. LOCATION AND ACCESS...............................................................................................................5

Figure 1. Tenement Location.......................................................................................................................5

3. TENURE...............................................................................................................................................6

Figure 2. Relinquished Sub-blocks..............................................................................................................6

4. GEOLOGY...........................................................................................................................................7

4.1 REGIONAL GEOLOGY.....................................................................................................................................................74.2 LOCAL GEOLOGY............................................................................................................................................................7

Figure 3 – Simplified Geology – Agate Creek Project................................................................................8Figure 4 – RTP Aeromagnetics and Structure..............................................................................................8

4.3 MINERALISATION............................................................................................................................................................9

5. BLOCK RELINQUISHMENT........................................................................................................10

Table 1. Relinquished Sub-blocks..............................................................................................................10Figure 5. Previous work carried out on EPM10719...................................................................................11

6. RESULTS...........................................................................................................................................12Table 2. Geochemistry rock chip results on relinquished Sub-blocks.......................................................12Table 3. Stream sediment sample results from within relinquished sub-blocks........................................13

7. CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................13

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Agate Creek Project comprises four EPM’s, EPM 9632 Cave Creek, EPM 10719 Little John, EPM 11237 Bar Creek and EPM 11238 Mud Springs Dam. The tenements were originally granted to CRA Exploration Pty Ltd (CRA) between 1993- 1996. CRA became Rio Tinto Exploration Pty Ltd (Rio Tinto) in 1997 and carried out exploration activities until towards the end of 1998. The licences were then renewed and transferred to Plutonic Operations Ltd (Plutonic) on 12 November 1998 as part of the sale of the Agate Creek Project (with no carried interest) at that time. Plutonic are the current tenement holders and are a wholly owned subsidiary of Homestake Gold of Australia Ltd (Homestake) that merged with Barrick Gold Corporation (BGC) at the end of 2001. Homestake carried out exploration activities on the four EPM’s during the period from November 1998 until late 2000.

On June 7 2001 Normandy Exploration Pty Ltd (Normandy) a wholly owned subsidiary of Normandy Mining Ltd entered into the Agate Creek Joint Venture Heads of Agreement (JVA) with Plutonic and continued exploration activities on the Agate Creek tenements. On 25 July 2001 the Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) approved a request from Normandy for joint reporting on the four Agate Creek tenements. In November 2001 following a restructure within the Normandy Group, Normandy assigned its rights under the Agate Creek JVA to Leyshon Resources Ltd (Leyshon – formerly Normandy Mt Leyshon Ltd). Leyshon did not carry out any ‘in ground’ exploration work during the period of their management of the project up until November 2003.

On 10 November 2003 Renison Consolidated Mines NL (Renison) entered into the Agate Creek Farmin and Joint Venture agreement with Plutonic whereby Renison may earn up to a 65% interest in the project by incurring expenditure of $1,500,000 over a period of three years, including a minimum expenditure of $250,000 in the initial year of the agreement. Renison is currently the sole manager/operator of the project after completing its Farmin requirements in April 2006 and now holds a 82% interest in the Agate Creek Gold Project

Work initially consisted of preliminary assessment and prioritisation for field work on numerous untested targets located within all four EPM’s. This was followed by detailed geological interpretation and preliminary resource modelling of the main Sherwood deposit then four phases of RC drilling totalling 220 holes for 6,212m at Sherwood, Sherwood West, Sherwood Central and Sherwood South Prospects. Detailed in-house geological interpretation and resource modelling has been carried out along with independent calculation of JORC compliant resource estimates by consultants, initially Hellman and Schofield Pty Ltd (Hellman & Schofield) and after the second and subsequent phases of drilling by Golder Associates Pty Ltd (Golders) who also carried out pit optimisation studies. Recently Renison has carried out rock chip sampling on EPM’s 9632, 11237 and 11238, and soil sampling at Cattle Creek, Eastern Bar Creek (EPM 11237) and Digger Creek Prospects (EPM11238).

Field work is currently suspended due to the wet season however, $2 million is budgeted for this dry season.

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2. LOCATION AND ACCESS

The Agate Creek Project is located approximately 340km west of Townsville, 60km west of Kidston Gold Mine, and 50km south of Forsayth in north Queensland.

The Tenements are located on the Georgetown (SE54-12) and Gilberton (SE54-16) 1:250,000 sheets and the Forsayth (7660), North Head (7560), Bellfield (7559), andGilberton (7659) 1:100,000 topographic sheets.

The project area can be accessed from Cairns or Townsville by good sealed and unsealed secondary roads that are suitable for conventional two wheel drive vehicles, or by light aircraft. From Forsayth the project area is then reached via approximately 70km of unsealed tertiary roads and access tracks that are more suited to four wheel drive vehicles. Tenement location shown in figure 1.

Figure 1. Tenement Location

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3. TENURE

EPM 11237 Bar Ck consists of 20 sub-blocks and covers an area of 65.01km². Bar Creek was granted on the 30th July 1996 and due to expire on the 29th July 2009.

6 Sub-blocks have been dropped as requested. See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Relinquished Sub-blocks

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4. GEOLOGY

4.1 Regional GeologyThe Agate Creek Project is located within the Georgetown Inlier comprising variably deformed Proterozoic metamorphics intruded by Proterozoic and Palaeozoic rocks. The Georgetown Inlier is the largest of several Precambrian inliers exposed in northern Queensland that are separated by Mesozoic and Cainozoic sediments, and Palaeozoic igneous rocks (Bain et al, 1990). The inliers are thought to be part of one province, the Georgetown-Coen Province (Henderson, 1980) comprising variably metamorphosed and deformed sedimentary and volcanic rocks of Early to Middle Proterozoic age, intruded by Middle Proterozoic, S-Type granitoids. The eastern margin of the province is in faulted contact with the Middle to Late Palaeozoic Hodgkinson and Broken River provinces of the Tasman Orogen. The Precambrian rocks are intruded and overlain by Cambro-Ordovician, Siluro-Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian igneous rocks.

A wide variety of Proterozoic, Palaeozoic and Cainozoic mineral deposits including significant deposits of gold at Kidston and nickel-cobalt at Greenvale are hosted within the Georgetown-Coen Province and these have been summarised by Bain et al (1990).

4.2 Local GeologyThe EPM areas form part of the Forsayth Sub-province of the Georgetown Inlier and the general area has been previously described and mapped by Bain et al. (1985). The project area is underlain by Lower Proterozoic rocks of the Robertson River Sub- group consisting of lower greenschist up to locally lower amphibolite grade metasediments including metasandstone, siltstone and mudstone correlated with the Corbett and Daniel Creek Formations, quartzite belonging to Tin Hill Quartzite Member along with metadolerite and metabasalt of the Cobbold Metadolerite. This sequence has been intruded locally by the Siluro-Devonian aged ?I-type Robin Hood Granodiorite. This has been followed by emplacement of Permo-Carboniferous sub- volcanic dykes and stocks that are the intrusive equivalents of the more areally extensive rhyolitic to andesitic volcanics and volcaniclastics of the Agate Creek Volcanic Group extending southeast into the Agate Creek Fossicking Area. Jurassic Hampstead Sandstone consisting of basal conglomerate and quartzose sandstone form thin plateau outliers capping the older rocks in the area. Simplified project geology is shown on Figure 2.

At least two prominent fault orientations representing long lived structures are present within the project area. These structures reflect the influence of three deformational events in the Agate Creek area and are considered to have been more or less re- activated during emplacement of Permo-Carboniferous intrusive activity and associated epithermal gold mineralisation. The Robertson Fault Zone and associated splays including the Agate Creek Fault outline the dominant NW oriented structural grain, however N to NNE trending faults including the Robin Hood Fault and Sherwood West Fault are also prominent features discernable on regional aeromagnetics (Figure 3) that locally affect the orientation of some of the rhyolite bodies, the strike of the metamorphics at Sherwood West and the orientation of the granite-metamorphics contact northeast of Sherwood prospect.

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JURASSICsandstone

CARBONIFEROUS TO PERMIANVfelsic volcanicsVintermediate volcanics felsic intrusions

SILURIANgranite

PROTEROZOICmetamorphics

5km Area: 460 km 2

V

Sherwood Prospect

VV V

VV V

V VVV

V V

V V

VV V

Agate Reserve

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AGATE CREEK PROJECT - REGIONAL GEOLOGY

PP.68a

Figure 3 – Simplified Geology – Agate Creek Project

Figure 4 – RTP Aeromagnetics and Structure

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4.3 MineralisationThe Agate Creek Project is situated in the general area of the former Etheridge Goldfield where gold, silver, copper and lead along with minor amounts of tin, tantalum and niobium has been historically produced from placer and hard rock sources. Localities include North Head, Forsayth, Percyville and Gilberton areas that are within a 50km radius of the project area. Mineral occurrence, production details and past company exploration activities can be found in Culpeper et al. (1996 & 1997) while further afield in the Georgetown Inlier mineral deposit description and mapping at 1:250,000 scale is provided by Bain & Withnall (1980) and Bain et al. (1984).

The majority of the historical deposits in the Etheridge Goldfield are hosted in the Forsayth Batholith and consist of reefs and sheeted veins of sulphidic, white euhedral bull quartz, up to five metres thick, located in steeply dipping, strongly structurally controlled fracture/shear zones, generally with narrow chloritic to propylitic alteration selvedges (Bain et al, 1990). Below the water table the quartz reefs are typically strongly pyritic and also contain galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. No clear cut district or regional metal zonation patterns have been defined but silver to gold ratios are variable and there are some deposits that were essentially silver producers and had only trace amounts of gold. Most of the stopes in the old workings suggest the ore shoots had lateral dimensions of around 20 to 200m with few mines worked below 100m.

The most significant deposit in the area is however, the recently mined out, +3Moz Kidston breccia pipe gold deposit, located approximately 60km east of the project area. The Kidston breccia pipe is hosted within Early to Middle Proterozoic Einasleigh Metamorphics and Siluro-Devonian Oak River Granodiorite (Baker & Tullemans, 1990). The pipe is temporally and spatially related to Permo- Carboniferous sub-volcanic dykes and plugs that include several generations of rhyolite and quartz-feldspar porphyry.

Closer to the project area, several Permo-Carboniferous felsic intrusives are located on or close to the Robertson Fault. At Bald Mountain, which is located 7km NW of the Sherwood Prospect at Agate Creek, and at Mount Hogan 40km to the SE, epithermal and mesothermal styles of gold mineralisation are noted in association with these rocks.

Epithermal gold mineralisation in the Agate Creek area represents a low-sulphidation, adularia-sericite type system that is genetically related to emplacement of Permo- Carboniferous porphyritic rhyolite and andesite dykes and stocks. At Sherwood prospect shallow dipping, semi radially arranged jasperoidal, colloform, crustiform, (sometimes bladed) chalcedonic breccia ‘reefs’ grading into zones of stockworking and sheeted veins dip inwards toward the upward flaring section of a rhyolite dyke and a steeply, southwesterly dipping section of the Agate Creek Fault (Figures 4, 5 & 6). The Agate Creek Fault strikes NW, can be traced over 3km and consists of fault breccia containing silicified cataclasite, rhyolite and quartz-chalcedony veins. Gold grades recorded from this structure from rock chip sampling and drilling to date are generally low, around 0.1-1g/t Au, but locally higher where veining is more intense. The best developed breccias and gold grades are hosted within the granodiorite in the hanging wall relative to the rhyolite dyke, however variably brecciated (usually weakly) to stockworked chalcedonic veins are also noted sporadically at the upper and lower contacts of the rhyolite bodies, within the rhyolite itself and in the footwall granodiorite.

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At Sherwood West gold mineralisation is hosted within a consistent, N-S striking fault, the Sherwood West Fault that dips between 30-45 E. This structure is up to 25m in width, but is generally 10-15m wide, contains chalcedonic breccias and veins and pervasively altered rhyolite to quartz-feldspar porphyry. Sherwood West is typically lower grade, with gold grades generally <5g/t Au over individual metres and typical intercepts from drilling, including recent drilling record mineralised intercepts over around 10-15m @ 0.5-2g/t Au range. The mineralised zone is however more consistent and predictable, has good tonnage prospects and is being considered for its obvious heap leach potential.

Alteration related to gold mineralisation can be quite extensive, is complicated by supergene effects and is best displayed in the granodiorite at Sherwood. It broadly consists of from distal to proximal of a ubiquitous propylitic type manifest as pervasive chloritisation carbonate-epidote-pyrite-?hematite grading inwards to variable argillic to sericitic to locally phyllic then silica flooding pyrite containing a virtually ‘gold only’ association with only weakly anomalous Ag-Sb-As-Mo-Pb.

5. BLOCK RELINQUISHMENT

Block Sub- Block2444 Q R S V2516 F2515 P

Table 1. Relinquished Sub-blocks

Due to limited access to these sub-blocks, Renison will be relinquishing the blocks shown in table 1. Exploration activities conducted on the sub-blocks relinquished from EPM 11237 were restricted to nil-impact geological reconaissance only, along with aster, ikonis, landsat and aeromagnetic anomoly interpretations.

Previous work conducted within EPM 11237 were carried out by Rio Tinto, Homestake and Normandy, all of which consisted of rock chips, soil samples and stream sediment samples. Samples collected from within the relinquished area can be seen in Figure 5 & Section 6.

.

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Figure 5. Previous work carried out on EPM10719

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6. RESULTS

Homestake and Rio Tinto completed both rock chip and stream sediment sampling programmes from within EPM 11237. Rock chip results collected within the relinquished sub-blocks are as shown in Table 2.

SAMPLE NO. COMPANY EAST AMG NORTH AMG Au Ave

1612247 Rio Tinto 773300.19 7913100.5 0.013

QA00701 Homestake 776600 7918780 -0.01

Table 2. Geochemistry rock chip results on relinquished Sub-blocks

Stream sediment samples collected from within the relinquished blocks are shown in table 3.

SAMPLE NO. COMPANY EAST AMG NORTH AMG Au Ave

606466 Rio Tinto 775151 7918278 0

606467 Rio Tinto 775532 7916193 0

1376109 Rio Tinto 775399 7918450 0.00215

1376111 Rio Tinto 775500 7917650 0.0115

1376112 Rio Tinto 775651 7917600 0.00015

1376127 Rio Tinto 773750 7912400 0.0031

1376128 Rio Tinto 773500 7912250 0.0001

1376129 Rio Tinto 773349 7913200 0.00035

1376135 Rio Tinto 771400 7910400 0.0124

1376136 Rio Tinto 771400 7911800 0.0001

1377109 Rio Tinto 775399 7918450 0.0015

1377111 Rio Tinto 775500 7917650 0.0015

1377127 Rio Tinto 773750 7912400 0.0015

1377135 Rio Tinto 771400 7910400 0.0015

1612065 Rio Tinto 771349 7911650 0.0002

1612068 Rio Tinto 773301 7913500 0.00085

QA00477 Homestake 771200 7910400 0.2

QA00478 Homestake 771270 7910410 0.2

QA00479 Homestake 772140 7910430 0.5

QA00608 Homestake 775380 7917520 0.7

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SAMPLE NO. COMPANY EAST AMG NORTH AMG Au Ave

QA00609 Homestake 775540 7917760 0.2

QA00610 Homestake 775560 7917760 0.2

QA00611 Homestake 775350 7918000 0.6

QA00612 Homestake 775320 7918060 0.1

QA00613 Homestake 775650 7918380 2

QA00614 Homestake 775320 7918440 0.6

QA00615 Homestake 776580 7918740 0.3

QA00616 Homestake 776600 7918780 0.9

QA00617 Homestake 776550 7918850 0.9

QA00618 Homestake 776220 7918740 0.5

QA00619 Homestake 776200 7918860 0.5

QA00620 Homestake 775340 7918820 0.5

Table 3. Stream sediment sample results from within relinquished sub-blocks

7. CONCLUSION

Due the inaccessibility to parts of the tenement such due to terrain and poor geochemical results, Renison is relinquishing 6 sub-blocks in the tenement. Exploration activities conducted on the sub-blocks relinquished from EPM 11237 were restricted to nil-impact geological reconaissance only.By using various methods of analysis, such as aeromagnetic interpretations, ikonis, aster and Landsat analysis, the sub-blocks for relinquishment were determined to be the land areas within EPM 11237 with the least geological importance to Renison.