North Stawell Minerals Ltd (ASX:NSM) has announced that it has expanded its exploration tenure by 50% with the grant of 167 km² of “key prospective ground” by Earth Resources Regulation Victoria.
Exploration Licence EL007324, known as “Deep Lead” encompasses gold potential under shallow cover within an under-explored area, and includes a 30km continuation of geology that hosts the Stawell Gold Mine.
Exploration on the tenement is set to be fully funded by NSM, which holds $11.8 million in cash reserves as at 30 June 2021.
“NSM has keenly awaited the granting of this key tenement”
Deep Lead in focus
The Deep Lead tenement provides NSM with access to an additional 167km² of the highly-prospective Stawell corridor, and shares geological history with the Stawell Mine.
Historic work on EL007324 has included 650 drill holes for a total of 36km, which revealed several areas of gold anomalism. The historic geochemistry of the area is extremely limited at 5km². This is despite the fact that the southern cover sediments are thin or absent.
Historical geochemistry has shown that it is possible that surface geochemical exploration can be used as a quick and low-cost way to find new targets for drill testing.
The north end of the tenement is covered by a layer of sediment, which thickens to 150m. Cover across the majority of the tenement is less than 100m thick, which was sufficient to hide bedrock mineralisation from gold rush prospectors.
Management comments
North Stawell Minerals interim Chief Executive Officer Russell Krause said:
“NSM has keenly awaited the granting of this key tenement. The new tenement includes exciting exploration opportunities for NSM”
“There are multiple opportunities to unmask additional Stawell-style mineralisation and the Company looks forward to updating shareholders as ground activities build momentum over the newly granted exploration leases.”
Images: North Stawell Minerals