Rox Resources (ASX:RXL) reports it has ‘significantly’ increased the mineral resource estimate (MRE) by 110% for the wholly-owned Mt Fisher Gold Project and the Mt Eureka Gold Project Joint Venture with Cullen Resources (ASX:CUL).
The total indicated and inferred resource for the two projects now stands at 3.5 million tonnes @ 1.65g/t Au for 187,000oz of contained gold, and the company used Widenbar Associates, an independent consultant to complete the MRE.
Following 6,700m of infill and extensional reverse circulation drilling completed in 2020 and 2021, Rox reports the Mt Fisher and Mt Eureka Gold resource update has resulted in a 110% increase in contained metal representing an additional 98,000oz of contained gold over the 89,000oz reported in July 2018.
The Mt Fisher and Mt Eureka resource comprises 5 separate gold deposits including Damsel, Mt Fisher Mine and Wagtail for 124,000oz on the company’s wholly owned tenements, 63,000oz at Taipan and Southern on the Mt Eureka JV, where Rox is earring up to 75%, with the remaining 25% being held by Cullen.
“The Mt Fisher greenstone belt has vast untapped potential”
Rox Resources Managing Director Rob Ryan said the company is very pleased to announce this significant increase to the gold resource and at a discovery cost of just $7/oz is a testament to the hard work and quality of the Rox’s exploration geology team.
“Whilst the 3.2 million ounce Youanmi Project sits at the forefront of the company’s future plans, the quality of our exploration asset at Mt Fisher should not be understated.
The Mt Fisher greenstone belt has vast untapped potential, and we will continue to evaluate corporate and exploration opportunities to advance the project.”
Rox reports the Mt Fisher and Mt Eureka Gold Project is located within the Mt Fisher greenstone belt in the Eastern Goldfields Superterrane of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia, and the greenstone belt is around 70km long by 20km wide straddling the Kurnalpi and Burtville Terrane boundary.
The Archaean geology in the project area comprises a north to northwest striking greenstone sequence comprising of refolded tholeiitics to ‘high’ magnesium basalts with numerous dolerite to gabbroic intrusives and lesser felsic volcaniclastics, intrusives, interflow sediments and talc-chlorite ultramafics.
The company says gold mineralisation occurs at several sites, most notably at the Dam and Damsel Gold Trend, Mt Fisher Mine, Wagtail, Taipan and Southern Prospects, and the Dam and Damsel Gold Trend is defined by ‘strong’ gold and multi-element anomalising including antimony, arsenic, bismuth, copper and zinc over 10km within a ‘well-defined’ structural corridor on the western limb of the Wonganoo Anticline.
Mineralisation trends in a north-south orientation and is interpreted by Rox to be channelled along the bounding Dam and Dirks shear zones and through an anastomosing network of linking structures between these shears.
According to Rox, the Damsel Prospect comprises a package of north-south striking, ‘strongly’ foliated tholeiitic to chloritic basalts intruded by felsic porphyries and dolerite/gabbros, and the regolith is ‘well’ developed over the area increasing towards the north to depths of over 100m.
‘Higher’ gold grades within the regolith are located along the upper and lower saprolite interface which the company speculates is due to supergene enrichment, and the primary gold mineralisation occurs in stacked parallel lenses that dip west and plunge moderately north, and is associated with ‘highly’ sheared silica-sericite-carbonate altered basalts with pyrite and chalcopyrite.
Rox reports the historic Mt Fisher Mine is located on a neighbouring structural corridor approximately 8km northeast of the Dam and Damsel gold trend, and is hosted within a sulphide facies chert bounded by a ‘strongly’ foliated chloritic ultramafic hanging wall and basaltic footwall, striking north-northeast and dipping to the east by around 50º.
Gold mineralisation occurs in association with massive and disseminated sulphides, mainly pyrrhotite with lesser pyrite, and the mineralisation plunges southwards beneath the southern end of the existing open put and is open at depth.
The company says the Wagtail prospect is a quartz vein hosted gold system, and historic production from the deposit between 1940 and 1952 produced 2,384oz at an average grade of 66g/t Au, and the reef strikes north with a sub-vertical to a steep easterly dip with ‘high-grade’ mineralisation plunging north.
The Mt Eureka Gold prospects are situated along a 15km long zone of sheared and anomalous greenstone rocks, and the company says the Taipan, Eureka, North-West, Southern-Galway and Graf’s Find are the main gold occurrences and have been the focus of drilling and exploration.
Rox describes the Taipan shear zone as a ‘large’ hydrothermal system in a complex structural setting, and the mineralised system has a strike length of 700m and a true thickness of up to 150m, consisting of sheared chlorite-quartz-biotite-carbonate schist containing moderately abundant fine disseminated pyrite.
Mineralisation at the Southern and Galway prospects occurs within silicified shear zones developed on a northeast striking, northwest dipping contact between felsic volcaniclastic schists and ultramafic schists.
Rox reports the mining of all deposits is expected to be by open pit mining, and the prospects for eventual economic extraction have been evaluated by carrying out pit optimisations using appropriate mining, processing costs and gold prices.
The next steps the company will be carrying out include follow-up RC drilling at key prospects, and given the company’s focus on the Youanmi Gold Project, Rox is advancing several options to realise value from the Mt Fisher and Mt Eureka gold project.
Rox Resources is a Western Australia focused gold exploration and development company that is a 70% owner and operator of the historic Youanmi Gold Project near Mt Magnet, and the wholly owned Mt Fisher Gold Project 140km southeast of Wiluna.
Images: Rox Resources Limited
