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Figure 1 below: Tennant Creek Geology &
Historical Production
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Figure 2 below: Tennant Creek Gravity & Targets
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The purchase of unlisted entity Bungarra Resources Pty
Ltd, which contains title to two groups of Exploration Licenses,
comprising 13 Exploration Licences totalling in excess of 220 square
kilometre in the Tennant Creek Goldfield of the Northern Territory. The
Tennant Creek Goldfield has produced approximately 5 million ounces of
gold and 345,000 tonnes of copper over an 80 year mining history.
The first group contains EL 23846 and EL 24158 totalling
40 graticular blocks (129.30 square kilometres) within the Tennant Creek
Goldfield in the Northern Territory as shown on Figure 1. The two
tenements lie on the Philip Creek Station which is held under Perpetual
Pastoral Lease 946 and therefore not affected by Aboriginal Land Rights
or Native title issues.
The two Exploration Licences are located between four
(Warrego, White Devil, Orlando and Gecko) of the nine largest producing
mines which have produced gold, copper and bismuth valued at over $6.5
billion at today's metal prices. Bungarra has recently carried out close
spaced gravity surveys across 50% of its tenements. This survey has
identified 24 targets of which 7 have geophysical signatures similar to
Warrego and White Devil and 5 have geophysical signatures similar to
Nobles Nob. There are plans to complete close space gravity surveying
across the remainder of its tenements within the coming months.
The second group of tenements contains 11 Exploration
Licenses comprising 91 km2. Geologically only 6 of the
Exploration Licenses have been prospected and have exploration targets.
The remaining 5 blocks will require gravity surveying to enhance their
prospectivity and to define drilling targets.
One of these tenements, EL 23828 covers 8.8 km2
and is held freehold. This is the most prospective EL in this suite of
tenements and contains several significant magnetic anomalies of similar
size to Juno. The EL is considered to have high potential for
mineralization akin to Juno which produced 863,000 ounces of gold at an
average grade of 59 g/t gold, almost two ounces per tonne.(See figure.
4)
The historical mined grades were rich in both gold and
copper as shown in the following table.
| Mine |
Year |
Ore (t) |
Ore Grades |
Metal Produced |
| Warrego |
1973-1989 |
4,944,000 |
7.6 g/t AU
0.3% Bi
2.0% Cu |
1,208,064 ounces
12,000 tonnes
91,500 tonnes |
| Peko |
1951-1975 |
3,160,000 |
3.5 g/t Aug
4.0% Cu
0.2% Bi |
240,523 ounces
118,884 tonnes
7,350 tonnes |
| Nobles Nob |
1949-1985 |
2,138,156 |
16.5 g/t Au |
1,134,282 ounces |
| Juno |
1967-1977 |
454,934 |
59 g/t Au
0.6% Bi |
862,982 ounces
2,293 tonnes |
| Gecko |
1973-1997 |
2,320,000 |
1.3 g/t Au
4.1% Cu |
96,968 ounces
93,300 tonnes |
| White Devil |
1987-1999 |
1,600,000 |
14.7 g/t Au |
756,197 ounces |
| orlando |
1961-1975 |
322,060 |
11.5 g/t Au
0.1% Bi
1.8% Cu |
119,078 ounces
320 tonnes
4,852 tonnes |
| Orlando East |
1994-1997 |
411,300 |
4.8 g/t Au
1.5% Cu |
63,474 ounces
6,170 tonnes |
| ivanhoe |
1965-1972 |
316,000 |
3.0% Cu |
8,950 tonnes |
Source: Gold Deposits of the Northern Territory,
Report 11, NTGS, Department of Mines and Energy, pg.47
Gold and copper mineralisation is associated with hydrothermal
replacement bodies closely associated with ironstone lenses composed of
magnetite, quartz, chlorite and haematite, commonly known as Iron Oxide
Copper Gold ('IOCG') deposits. Past exploration has relied heavily upon
magnetics for detecting magnetic ironstone bodies, whereas gravity is
now being used successfully to detect non-magnetic mineralised ironstone
deposits.
New advanced exploration techniques and advances understanding IOCG
mineralisation now provide the Company with an opportunity to test the
prospectivity and significance of these projects for the delineation of
large scale economic mineralisation.
With close proximity to the Warrego mill and the historical Warrego,
Orlando, White Devil, Peko, Nobles Nob and Juno mines and a recent
renewed focus on base metals in the Tennant Creek district, the
prospectivity for these tenements is promising.
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Figure 3 below: Modelled EM data at the
Great Western Prospect, Tennant Creek Prospect
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Exploration undertaken at the Tennant Creek Project during the past
quarter has focused on completing the close-spaced gravity surveys
across the iron oxide copper gold 'IOCG' project area. Interpretation of
the initial results has identified several potential drill-targets where
gravity anomalies are coincident with more subtle magnetic anomalies.
The most obvious of these anomalies has been further investigated using
EM methods which successfully identified a large, chargeable metallic
body at shallow levels that is coincident with both the gravity and
magnetic anomalies and forms an excellent priority drill target at the
Great Western Prospect (Figure
3).
The data collation process is ongoing for the Tennant Creek Project
area and is due for completion by March, 2008, at which point a major
target generation exercise will be undertaken to identify and rank
priority drill targets as a precursor to aggressive exploration drilling
that is expected to commence in April/May 2008.
Interpretation of the recently completed close spaced gravity
programme covering the remaining tenements not previously surveyed at
the beginning of last year is ongoing by Southern Geoscience
Consultants. New target generation will occur this coming quarter with
recommendations for follow up EM or IP surveys.
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