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The Firetower project is located
65km west of Launceston, and 35km south of Devonport, in northern
Tasmania. The project area comprises three contiguous tenements
that cover a total area of 152sq km.
The Company has outlined a large mineralised system
more than 6km in length, and only 400m of this has been investigated
to date. There is scope for a large gold resource. Firetower greatly
resembles the nearby Henty gold mine owned and operated by Barrick
Gold, the world’s largest gold mining company. Henty is
a plus million ounce deposit. Work at Firetower has identified
gold mineralisation adjacent to the existing resource. This remains
to be tested by drilling. Also the project area, originally covering
18km of strike and hosting the Firetower gold resource, has been
extended to cover over 40km of strike.
The project covers rocks equivalent to those of
the Mt Read Volcanic sequence, which hosts the world class base
metal deposits of Mt Lyell, Hellyer, and Rosebery; and the large
Henty gold deposit.
These deposits are of a world class scale, for
example, Roseberry hosts 32.3Mt at 2.3g/t Au, 0.59% Cu, 14.6%
Zn, 4.5% Pb and 145g/t Ag while Henty hosts 2.83Mt at 2.5g/t Au
for in excess of 1.1M oz gold. Also nearby is the Beaconsfield
gold mine that hosts over 2 million ounces of gold.
Local infrastructure is good with sealed and formed
roads, power, water, accommodation, communications and numerous
regional supply points. Also, a skilled local workforce is accessible
from the many nearby regional centres.
The project contains an initial inferred resource
of 90,000oz of gold. The resource has not been closed off, remains
open in all directions, and at depth. The mineralisation comes
to surface, and mining would be by open pit with a low stripping
ratio.
Gold mineralisation at the Firetower deposit is
associated with widespread alteration of volcaniclastic rocks.
Alteration is dominated by silica, sericite, carbonate, and pyrite.
Rockchip results include 30.1g/t Au, 14.2g/t Au and 11.2g/t Au.
To date gold mineralisation has been defined over a strike length
of 400m and has a width of approximately 80m.
Gold grades intersected in drilling are up to 30g/t over one metre.
Drilling to date has only tested to a maximum depth of 100m. Drilling
was completed by Noranda Pty Ltd (now Falconbridge) during 1990,
Plutonic Operations Ltd in 1992, AurionGold Ltd (now Barrick Gold)
in 2002 and Greatland 2006-present. Mineralisation is hosted in
a stockwork that consists of fine quartz-carbonate veining with
a sulphide content of between 2% and 5%.
Other areas of gold mineralisation, and structural
targets, have been identified over 40km of strike east and west
of the deposit. These are yet to be drill tested and Greatland
is carrying out systematic exploration over them.
Geology and drilling
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Geochemistry |
Long section |
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