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The Ernest Giles gold project is a large, gold prospective area located in central Western Australia. Title to the mineral rights was granted to the Company by the Western Australian government during 2009.
The project comprises two contiguous tenements which cover an area of 686 sq kms. The project is located in a remote desert region 250km north east of Laverton in central Western Australia.
The project area covers two buried Archean greenstone belts, part of the Yilgarn Craton. The Archean basement is recognised to be part of the far eastern Yilgarn Craton. The eastern Yilgarn region contains the Wiluna, Leonora, Kalgoorlie, St Ives, and Norseman gold camps and the 'world-class' nickel sulphide deposits of Mt Keith, Leinster, and Kambalda. The eastern Yilgarn Craton is the most highly mineralised area in Western Australia, containing numerous gold deposits that individually have production in excess of 1 million ounces of gold according to studies by Geoscience Australia, the Australian national geological survey.
The Ernest Giles region hosts the recently discovered Tropicana gold discovery, operated by AngloGold Ashanti Australia Ltd, which lies about 200km to the south of the Ernest Giles Project. The Tropicana gold resource currently stands at over 5 million ounces and this discovery has been made beneath desert sands in the order of 20 to 40 metres thick.
At Ernest Giles, the locations of the Archean greenstone belts have been interpreted from aeromagnetic data collected by the Australian government and Western Mining Corporation (WMC). Aeromagnetic images of the area clearly show the presence of linear, strongly magnetic lithologies within the project tenements. The Archean greenstone sequence is covered by approximately 10m of recent desert sands along with in excess of 100m of Permian glacial tillite.
Due to its remote nature and cover sequences there has been only limited previous exploration. CRA Exploration and WMC Exploration explored parts of the project area between 1996 and 1999. Limited reverse circulation (RC) drill holes were completed by WMC Exploration which confirmed the presence of gold prospective Archean rocks at a depth of 170m.
The greenstone belts clearly defined by the existing geophysics are likely to contain gold mineralisation, based on the fact that most of the other well explored belts of similar size in the Yilgarn region have been shown to contain various gold occurrences and deposits. The Yilgarn greenstones also contain both disseminated and massive nickel sulphide mineralisation. If the cover sequence at Ernest Giles were substantially less the tenements would have been subject to far more extensive precious metals exploration.
The Ernest Giles greenstone belt is one of only a few greenstone belts within the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia that has not been explored in detail. However, the apparent project-wide cover has deterred companies from systematic exploration over the length of the belt, as it would be more expensive than similar exploration over belts with less cover.
Similar Archean stratigraphy is seen at Mt Magnet, 600km to the west. Gold deposits at Mt Magnet have yielded in excess of 5 million ounces of gold. The Ernest Giles project area clearly shows similarities of size, structure, and magnetic signatures of the Mt Magnet area. One objective of our planned exploration will be to better understand the geology at Ernest Giles which the Company believes is very similar to Mt Magnet.
At Ernest Giles specific gold targets have already been interpreted by the Company from existing geophysical and geochemical data. Such targets are to be tested with a relatively small number of RC pre-collared diamond holes within a predefined budget that the Company estimates at AUD$400,000.
It is widely recognised in the exploration and mining industry that the next generation of large deposits will come from areas under cover that have not been subject to significant exploration in the past.
Field activities are scheduled to commence at Ernest Giles during 2009. Like the remote Tropicana gold deposit, field operations will be managed from Perth in Western Australia, supplies will be sourced from Kalgoorlie and Perth, and the Ernest Giles project will be accessed by existing 4WD tracks.
Yilgarn Craton
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Regional Geology
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Aeromagnetics
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Southern Targets
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