SEG 45 Final_qx4 - Society of Economic Geologists

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EXPLORATION REVIEWS 32 SEG NEWSLETTER No 63 • OCTOBER 2005 ... from 31 Exploration Reviews (Continued) owned subsidiary, AMR Nickel, has entered into an agreement with Mineral Development Company (Mideco) to acquire its 20% interest in the Ban Phuc nickel project, located west of Hanoi. AMR has agreed to make a cash payment of $2.5M to acquire its interest. Upon completion of the transaction, AMR will hold a 90% interest in the project, with the Mechanical Engineering Company of Son La province holding the remaining 10%. The Olympus Pacific Minerals Inc. ongoing exploration programs on the Phuoc Son and Bong Mieu Gold Properties have delineated a total of five deposits. On the Phuoc Son gold property, 11 exploration and in-fill holes totaling 1,918 m have been drilled. Better intersections from step-out drilling in the Dak Sa-2 (Bai Go) deposit area include hole 132, 2.51 m @ 134.72 g/t Au; hole 41, 0.23 m @ 26.3 g/t Au; and hole 68, 3.2 m @ 3.49 g/t Au. Results from the in-fill drilling on the Dak Sa-1 (Bai Dat) deposit include hole 121, 5.2 m @ 8.85 g/t Au; hole 122, 8 m @ 11.13 g/t Au; hole 126, 3.05 m @ 39.28 g/t Au; and hole 127, 4.7 m @ 23.97 g/t Au. AUSTRALASIA Regional Correspondent: Brent McInnes (SEG 1999) CSIRO Exploration and Mining With contributions from James Beeston – Queensland Queensland Department of Natural Resources & Mines Tony Christie (SEG 1992) – New Zealand NZ Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences Sue Daly – South Australia PIRSA Geoff Green (SEG 2000) – Tasmania Mineral Resources Tasmania Jonathan Law (SEG 1993 F) – Victoria CSIRO Minerals Tim McConachy (SEG 1987 F) – New South Wales CSIRO Exploration & Mining Russell Meares (SEG 1996) – New South Wales Malachite Resources AUSTRALIA Geoscience Australia has released a report indicating that Australia has the world’s largest economic demonstrated resources (EDR) of Zn, Pb, Ni, mineral sands (rutile and zircon), Ta and uranium. Australia is one of the top six producing countries for commodities such as bauxite, black coal, brown coal, Cu, Au, iron ore, ilmenite, Li, Mn, Nb, Ag and industrial diamond. Mineral exploration spending in the second half of 2004 rose to $AUD512M, a 33% increase relative to the equivalent period in 2003. While Au remained the predominant target in 2004, its share of total spending fell below 50% to $414M, whereas base metal exploration increased its share of spending to $207.4M, an increase of 22.5%. Nationally 39% of exploration spending was directed at the search for new deposits. Tasmania had the highest proportion of exploration in this category of any jurisdiction with 54.7% of its spending, whereas the Northern Territory had the lowest at 31.3%. Full report details can be found at . SOUTH AUSTRALIA A significant grass roots discovery has been reported by unlisted explorer RMG Services at the Carrapateena prospect, 100 km southeast of Olympic Dam. The second of two exploration drill holes intersected 178.2 m @ 1.83% Cu, 0.64 g/t Au, 0.21% Ce and 0.13% La over a vertical interval from 476 to 654.2 m. The mineralized zone has similarities with the Olympic Dam-Prominent Hill–style of Fe oxide-Cu-Au (IOCG) mineralization. The upper altered zone consists of bornite-rich breccias, bornite stringers and some chalcocite (~476–549 m), a central zone of more gneissic and granitic material, and a lower zone of dominant chalcopyrite (607-654.2m). No significant U values were reported, but Ag was slightly anomalous. RMG’s drilling was 50% funded by the South Australian government’s Plan For Accelerated Exploration (PACE), part of a five-year $22.5M initiative to encourage mineral exploration in South Australia. TASMANIA Zinifex Ltd announced an intersection of 8.7 m @ 5.8% Zn contained an Ag grade of 605 g/t in the Rosebery mine. These grades correlate with those in a nearby hole and suggest that a new lens of ore has been discovered. Another hole intersected 5 m of high grade ore containing 15% Zn. The company has also intersected 23.8 m of alteration in a hole in the Boco area, 9 km north of Rosebery, including 3.1 m of mineralization and 1 m of high grade Pb and Zn. Zinifex and Resource Investments and Finance Limited (RFI) have announced a joint venture on RFI’s tenements in the Hellyer area under which each will invest $1M into exploration over the next two years. RFI will conduct the exploration and Zinifex will have the right to select three areas on which to fund and conduct a full feasibility study in return for 70% of any resources discovered. Allegiance Mining has announced a 14 m intersection of 2.5% Ni in a hole 250 m west of the resource envelope and 150 m west of a previous intersection of 12 m of 1.6% Ni at the Avebury Ni deposit. This extends the strike length of the deposit to more than 1,000 m. Lefroy Resources has extended the strike length of mineralization in the Lefroy goldfield, northeast Tasmania. Drilling at the Pinafore Reef intersected 17 m of 4.49 g/t Au. A hole at the Native Youth Reef returned 1 m intersections of 23.88, 13.62 and 7.94 g/t Au. The second of these was part of a 10-m intersection at 2.41 g/t. Copper Mines of Tasmania is drilling a deep hole into a pyrophyllite anomaly identified in an airborne hyperspectral survey commissioned by Mineral Resources Tasmania and conducted by CSIRO and HyVista Corporation in the Mount Lyell area. The survey was funded by the Australian Government under the Western Tasmanian Minerals Program. Some Cu mineralization has been intersected high in the hole, but the target depth has yet to be reached. GTN Resources Limited is continuing its drilling program on the King Island scheelite deposit. GTN expects to complete a full feasibility study by the end of 2005 and production is scheduled to commence in early 2006. NEW SOUTH WALES In the Lachlan fold belt Cu-Au region, Newcrest announced that the Ridgeway Deeps project will proceed based on increasing the depth of mining at the Ridgeway Au-Cu deposit at their Cadia mining complex near Orange by a further 300 m. The extension will add production of 1.3 M oz Au
OCTOBER 2005 • No 63 SEG NEWSLETTER 33 and 163 Kt Cu to the Ridgeway operation, extending mine life by six years. The Ridgeway mine reported cash costs for the 2004-2005 financial year of only $39/oz, compared with $109/oz for the previous quarter. At the Copper Hill prospect, Golden Cross reported drill intersections of 217 m @ 0.72% Cu and 1.17 g/t Au (close to an old hole of comparable grade) and 128 m @ 0.32% Cu, 0.19 g/t Au, 35 ppm Mo. Further drilling will focus on poorly drilled portions down to 200m depth. Rio Tinto has proposed to extend their block caving mining operations at Northparkes until 2017 via the development of the E48 deposit which has reserves of 22.6 Mt at 1.15% Cu and 0.46 g/t Au. Alkane Exploration’s strong land position in the Orange-Cadia district has attracted the attention of Newmont, which has signed a joint venture to earn up to an initial 51% in the Alkane tenements by funding $5M in exploration expenditure over a fiveyear period, with the right to earn an additional 24% interest. Previous work by Alkane in the area returned 19 m @ 0.2% Cu and 1.23 g/t Au. Alkane also plans to have a bankable feasibility study for its 600,000 oz Wyoming Au deposit ready by the end 2005. The company is undertaking studies to better understand the geometry of the underground ore shoots to determine an optimal mine plan. Alkane has also progressed its nearby Galwadgere Cu- Au project to a small open cut resource of 2 Mt @ 1% Cu, and continues marketing studies on its complex Dubbo zirconia-tantalum-niobium project. In the New England fold belt (NEFB), drilling programs by Straits Resources at a number of vein systems at the mothballed Hillgrove Au-Sb mine have shown continued success. The company PAID ADVERTISEMENT ◆ News Summaries ◆ Deposit Statistics ◆ Research Information 100 Lemming Dr. Reno, Nevada 89523 phone: 775 345-2343 fax 775 345-1317 http://www.activityupdate.com info@activityupdate.com has recently announced a resource of 3.9 Mt at 5.1 g/t Au and 1.95% Sb (1.2Moz Au equiv), and is looking at the possibility of re-opening the mine. Historical production at Hillgrove totaled 720 Koz Au and 50 Kt Sb. Drake Resources has commenced exploration to evaluate the potential of the Drake low-sulfidation epithermal field, where resources currently stand at 146 Koz Au and 4.6 Moz Ag with base metal credits. Triako Resources’ high-grade Hera Au deposit (1.49 Mt @ 9.4g/t Au, 0.5% Cu, 4.4% Pb, 4.3% Zn and 24g/t Ag) has attracted the interest of CBH Resources, which purchased a 6.5% stake in Triako for $2.5M. Hera is located about150 km from CBH’s Endeavour Zn-Pb-Ag operation near Cobar. VICTORIA Recent attention has focused on the Fosterville region in Victoria with the successful commissioning of Perseverance Corporation’s bacterial oxidation treatment plant. Production at the Fosterville mine for 2005-2006 is estimated to reach 135,000 oz of Au and development is scheduled to commence early in 2006 to access the 810,000 oz underground reserve. In the same region, Gold Fields have reported a new greenfields discovery based on four exploration holes. No details have been released. Austar Resources have reported encouraging results from the 1.5 Moz historical Walhalla goldfield. Recent drilling at the Lomond Reef discovery has extended the strike length of known mineralization to 800 m and to a depth of 300 m with an average thickness of 6.5 m. Austar plans to commence a scoping study in late 2005. ORE AND THIN SECTION PETROGRAPHY QUEENSLAND The Department of Natural Resources and Mines kicked off its Smart Exploration initiative at the Structure, Tectonics and Ore Mineralisation Processes (STOMP) Conference in Townsville by announcing the completion of a major airborne airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the Mount Rawdon Corridor in southeast Queensland. NEW ZEALAND Newmont’s decline at Favona in the Waihi district, Coromandel region, North Island, was over 500 m long and over 70 m below the surface in August. Exploration drilling continued in a number of nearby areas including Waihi East, Union Hill and under the Martha open pit. Exploration continues to find highgrade veins under the Martha pit with one intercept reported as 7 m true width at 22 g/t Au and 100 g/t Ag. Glass Earth completed their Taupo Volcanic Zone airborne geophysical surveys (40,000 line km of aeromagnetic/ radiometrics and 6,000 line km of airborne gravity) and are processing the data to identify drill prospects. In the South Island, OceanaGold continued development work on the Globe- Progress mine near Reefton and increased resources to 604,000 oz Au through pit design optimization. Similarly, a redesign of the plan for underground mining from 2007 on the Frasers downdip extension of the Macraes open pit mine in Otago, involved decreased tonnage but increased grade to 3.05 g/t Au. CanAlaska Ventures recently completed a program of RC drilling on the Rise and Shine shear zone with joint venture to page partner OceanaGold. 34 ... LTL Petrographics L. T. LARSON, PHD. 35 YEARS EXPERIENCE WITH ROCKS AND ORES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. OPTICAL MICROSCOPY, SEM AND MICROPROBE. Phone: 775-849-0587 340 Sparrow Way Email: RockdocL@Netscape.net Carson City, Nevada 89704 LTLPetrographics@yahoo.com PAID ADVERTISEMENT EXPLORATION REVIEWS
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SEG 45 Final_qx4 - Society of Economic Geologists

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