Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM) has identified an extensive gold footprint in soil sampling at its Black Range Epithermal Gold Project in the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales.
The company is currently completing a tenement wide prospectivity assessment of the Black Range Project, which will incorporate a review of available ASTER hyperspectral data with the new geochemical data and geological understanding.
Anomalous soil results in locations where no historical work has occurred will be followed up by field reconnaissance, mapping and rock chip sampling. The company says the outcomes of this work will directly inform its strategy for drill testing priority epithermal targets in the future.
Legacy has started reconnaissance rock chip sampling and systematic soil geochemical sampling programs across the Black Range tenement with the first of its high priority prospects having been completed.
Legacy has started reconnaissance rock chip sampling and systematic soil geochemical sampling programs across the Black Range tenement with the first of its high priority prospects having been completed
Assays results confirm low-sulphidation epithermal gold-silver mineralisation at the Sugar Bag Hill prospect with reconnaissance rock chip samples reporting grades up to 2.27g/t Au,
29.6g/t Ag, 176.5ppm Mo, 40.6ppm Sb and 3,370ppm As.
Gold mineralisation is associated with strong quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration that has completely altered or selectively replaced the crystalline groundmass of a matrix supported felsic volcanic breccia unit.
The alteration system is hosted by altered epiclastic rocks that include lapilli tuffs, tuffaceous siltstones, and shales, together with felsic volcanic breccias and andesites (Gilbert 1989) of the Mountain Creek Volcanics. Legacy says the host rock sequence exhibits complex brecciation and alteration which includes pre-brecciation quartz veins, and extensively developed chalcedonic quartz veins.
The Legacy Minerals field team completed the first pass soil sampling geochemical survey, consisting of 487 samples across a zone of silica-sericite-pyrite altered rocks and wider known silica-sinter related lithology.
Most samples are interpreted as representing residual soils and were nominally collected from the B soil horizon at depths between 0.1m and 0.4m. These soil samples were taken systematically to assess the potential for mineralisation around recently identified silica sinter lithology and to confirm historical surface sampling by Newcrest that indicated high tenor gold anomalism. This work will vector towards potential high-grade gold-silver bearing ore shoots in low sulphidation epithermal-style quartz veins within known mineralised trends for future drill testing, and to assess the broader tenement area for previously unrecognised Au-Ag mineralisation.
Laboratory assays reported from ALS Orange and Brisbane were analysed for 53 elements.
Low sulphidation epithermal-style gold-silver deposits typically have distinct geochemical pathfinder
element signatures that provide insight to the depth of erosion and preservation level of the system.
The soil sampling results have delineated extensive zones of elevated Au and Ag as well as other
pathfinder elements including Sb, As, Hg, Mo, Se and Tl.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Legacy Minerals
