DRILLING PROGRAM
Mount Squires ProjectThe Mount Squires Project is located in the West Musgrave region of WA, approximately 780km northeast of Kalgoorlie, and covering an area of 480km2. The Project is situated 10km southwest of the Nebo and Babel nickel-copper deposits, currently owned by BHP between the townships of Warburton and Jameson.
The Project sits within the Mesoproterozoic West Musgrave Province, at the triple-point junction of the Yilgarn, North Australian and South Australian cratons. The Project is hosted within the Warakurna supersuite with the Handpump Structural Trend, a continental scale suture, separating dominantly felsic lithologies in the west, from dominantly mafic lithologies to the east.
Drilling Program Planning and Technical Review
Handpump Gold Anomaly
The Palgrave Caldera, a paleo-supervolcano, sits in the north of the Project, providing mantle plumbing and enriching the area with high background metal levels, orders of magnitude higher than other mineralised domains in Australia. Sediments of the Neoproterozoic Officer Basin sit to the south of the Project.
Within the Project area, the Handpump gold anomaly was first identified by Western Mining Corporation Limited in 1999 through the initial regional lag sampling in the West Musgraves.
This soil sampling also resulted in WMC’s discovery of the Nebo and Babel nickel-copper deposits.
At Mount Squires, gold mineralisation is closely associated with rhyolite contacts, felsic volcaniclastics, and long-lived north-south trending structures.
The Handpump Structural Trend extends for 30km through the Project and serves as a major fluid conduit for metals sourced from rhyolites and felsic volcanics
Opportunity
It is interpreted that interruptions and flexures in this generally linear north-west south-east structure present potential trap sites of upgraded background mineralisation. Only a small fraction of the Handpump Structural Trend has been drilled with a number of geochemical and geophysical anomalies remain untested.
The West Musgrave region hosts one of the most important clusters of mafic-ultramafic layered intrusions globally. This layered intrusion is known as the Giles Complex and is considered to be one of the world’s largest layered intrusions. Giles-age mafic intrusions host the Nebo and Babel nickel-copper sulphide deposits, discovered in 2000 and currently owned by BHP.
The Project contains a 17km corridor of mafic rocks, including Giles-complex intrusives. Historical soil sampling has been effective at defining geochemical anomalies beneath shallow sand cover and airborne electromagnetic surveys have provided first-pass exploration coverage of the corridor.
The Company intends to undertake a structured and comprehensive approach to planning a drilling program at the Project, including a detailed technical review of historical data and field validation.
