Sunshine Gold (ASX:SHN) has become first movers to target rare earth elements (REEs) at its wholly owned Ravenswood West Project near Townsville, a region well-endowed for gold.
Managing Director Damien Keys told Mining.com.au on the sidelines of the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Sydney today (2 November) that the Ravenswood West Project (Au-Cu-REEs-Mo-Ag) is in rare company.
For one, he says it’s rare to be the first to drill test such a compelling target, and secondly, it’s not common to have REEs and even molybdenum (Mo) found in these coastal parts of Queensland.
“We’re super excited about what’s to come out of this drill program. Hopefully we’ll have some assay work to report on in the lead up to Christmas.
To be honest at Ravenswood, we have beautiful soil anomaly, beautiful geophysical anomaly, the right rocks, so it’s ticking all the boxes and no one has drilled a hole there. We’re also drilling on a rare earth target later this week that no one has a drilled a hole into as well.
“we’re in a great mineral province with 20Moz-plus produced in and around Ravenswood and we’re first movers in rare earths”
Queensland in general is underexplored relative to WA for example but we’re in a great mineral province with 20Moz-plus produced in and around Ravenswood and we’re first movers in rare earths.”
Sunshine Gold has started diamond drilling at its wholly owned Ravenswood West Project in Queensland to test a breccia pipe gold target analogous to nearby major gold mines. The MD says Wilburs Hill has strong prospectivity, which was the culmination of 12 months of systematic exploration.
The company has worked Wilburs Hill up from a concept based on broad spaced soil data, to a multilayered target “with the right host rocks, right soil chemistry and a strong geophysical anomaly below”. The target is located at 100-150m depth which is likely why it has been untested.
Dr Keys notes that the Wilburs Hill target in particular is located 10km west of the 1-million-ounce Mt Wright Gold Mine, part of Queensland’s largest gold mine at Ravenswood, which has been defined from ‘encouraging’ mapping, sampling, and geophysical campaigns.
“It’s a cracking target that we’ve generated ourselves starting 12 months ago really from a broad spaced soil sampling survey. Since that time, we’ve tightened up the soils and we’ve been out doing the mapping and we’ve had some co-funding from the Queensland government for geophysical survey and that’s lit up a beautiful target right underneath Wilbur’s Hill itself underneath those soil anomalies.”
“It’s a cracking target that we’ve generated ourselves”
The prospect is situated on the Boori Lineament, a ‘highly prospective’ gold corridor which extends from Mt Wright to the 3.5Moz Mt Leyshon Gold Mine (in the west) and the 1Moz Mt Wright Gold Mine (in the east). Wilburs Hill shares several geological affinities with both Mt Leyshon and Mt Wright.
Three diamond holes (1,800m drilling) are planned in the initial drill program and the holes are designed to intersect the strongest zone of anomalism in the Titan Induced Polarisation – Magnetotelluric (IP-MT) survey.
The Titan Induced Polarisation – Magnetotelluric (IP-MT) survey has defined a pipe-like target that is 300m x 250m in dimension and defined to depths of more than 800m (from MT). Strong chargeability responses from IP are typically indicative of high sulphide contents, Dr Keys notes.
The IP-MT survey has defined a pipe-like target that is 300m x 250m in dimension and defined to depths of more than 800m (from MT).
Sunshine reports ore at the Mt Wright and Mt Leyshon gold mines contained abundant sulphides (pyrite ± marcasite), which displayed a moderate-strong IP response. MT data gives resolution to greater depths and has identified a low resistive anomaly extending further beneath the IP chargeable anomaly.
The alignment of anomalism across the 2 independent geophysical datasets provides an excellent target.
Sunshine Gold is developing four projects with tier one potential in north Queensland over 1,000km-square in proven districts with high prospectivity for gold, copper, molybdenum, and rare earths elements. These include the Triumph Project (Au), the Ravenswood West Project (Au-Cu-REEs-Mo-Ag), Investigator (Cu), and Hodgkinson (Au-W).
Mining.com.au is an official media partner of IMARC.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Sunshine Gold Ltd
