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Yalgoo Copper-Gold

Yalgoo Project area map (Wadgingarra and Carlaminda)

Introduction

The Wadgingarra and Carlaminda projects are 100% Aurox owned and lie within the Yalgoo Mineral Field of Western Australia. The project areas comprise eleven exploration and prospecting licences containing approximately 10 kilometres of historical gold shows worked from 1897 to 1909 and again between 1930 and 1946. The tenements are located adjacent to the Geraldton-Mt Magnet Road, 11 km east and 3 km north, respectively, of the Township of Yalgoo. The rail head at Mullewa is 98 km east of the port of Geraldton and 120 km west of the Yalgoo Township.

Historical Exploration

Wadgingarra

The Wadgingarra tenements cover a typical north trending Archaean sequence of mafic rocks - gabbro/dolerite, tholeiitic basalt, and ultramafic talc schists with minor sediments. The sequence has been sheared and faulted. The principal gold mineralisation is confined to alteration zones in two dolerite bodies on opposite limbs of a local isoclinal fold.

The tenements contain a number of abandoned gold workings with recorded production of 2,884 tonnes grading 13.4 grams per tonne. Geological mapping, surface sampling and limited exploration drilling indicates good potential for economic gold mineralisation to occur within the numerous alteration zones containing auriferous quartz veins that occur within the mafic and ultramafic rocks.

A total of 329 reverse circulation (RC) drill holes were drilled between 1986 and 1989 to investigate the extent and continuity of several historical gold workings on the Wadgingarra leases including Crescent, Olive Queen, Cumberland, Consuelo and Broken Mount. Significant drilling intersections are listed below in Table One:

Table One: Significant drilling intersections at Wadgingarra

In 1995 a 3000 metre programme of RC drilling was carried out on wide spaced sections to a depth of 40 metres to test coincident gold-copper soil anomalies. The results confirmed the presence of underlying bedrock mineralisation as the source of the anomalies. Table two provides a non-inclusive result:

Table Two: Anomalies caused by underlying bedrock

Carlaminda

The Carlaminda project is centred approximately 15 kilometres north of the Yalgoo township and contains the abandoned gold mines of the Carlaminda Mining Centre that occur in five north trending linear groups; Carlaminda, Iris, Sovereign, Gladstone and Bendigo Group.

The project is located on the western side of a regional anticline comprising a folded sequence of metasediments, ultramafic rocks and mafic volcanics including high magnesium basalts intruded by dolerites. The workings lie along a regional shear that extends some eight kilometres through the prospect.

Historical production from the Carlaminda Mining Centre from 1897 to 1900 is recorded at 34 kilograms grading 15.8g/t. Additional production of 18.7 kilograms occurred up to 1946.

Exploration work for nickel (1969-70) included regional and detailed geological mapping, regional geophysical surveys, geochemical surveys, costeaning and drilling. Although no significant nickel results were reported, the Aurox technical team is using the data to identify and prioritise the prospective gold targets within the project area.

Other work, including that undertaken by Charter Union Gold NL (1987) and Mount Grace Gold Mining NL (1994-96), resulted in the discovery of several gold and copper anomalies which require follow-up analysis.

Aurox Exploration

Figure 1: Wadgingarra Project Crescent Prospect cross section

Wadgingarra

In December 2004 Aurox announced the results of its inaugural RC drilling campaign at Yalgoo. The drilling intersected shallow high-grade gold and gold-copper zones in the vicinity of the historical workings at Crescent and Olive Queen located on its Wadgingarra tenements.

The more significant drilling results include:

A total of 32 reverse circulation holes were drilled for 2,323 metres in the Wadgingarra area to test the potential of the historic workings to host new economic gold and copper mineralisation and to gain a better understanding of the local geology and mineralisation controls.

The gold mineralisation at Crescent appears to be hosted by southerly plunging stacked saddle reefs and associated en echelon structures. Mineralisation is found within disjointed zones of quartz in sheared and partly sulphidised dolerite associated with alteration zones containing chlorite, epidote, pyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite and quartz veining. Figure 1 on the right, displays the steeply dipping orientation of the Crescent mineralisation and the high grade gold tenor of the quartz reefs. 

Figure 1: Wadgingarra Project Olive Queen Prospect cross section

At Olive Queen the mineralisation is associated with acid volcanics and an ironstone reef occurring as a tension fracture in quartz dolerite which extends into adjacent felsic tuffs. A second zone of mineralisation is associated with a series of parallel quartz ironstone stringers concordant with the dolerite-felsic tuff contact. A section through Olive Queen is displayed in Figure 2.

Aurox conducted a 3000 point geochemical auger drilling programme over its wholly owned tenements at Wadgingarra and Carlaminda.

The work at Wadgingarra identified several new gold zones in the southern tenement area as well as highly anaomalous gold values between and along strike of the historical workings at Crescent and Olive Queen. The soil samples also highlighted significant zones of copper anomalism with +100ppm values striking up to 4 kilometres in a north-northeast direction. Figures 3 and 4 show the new Wadgingarra gold and copper soil contours.

Carlaminda

A series of widely spaced 60m deep angled RC holes were drilled at various points along three sub-parallel structures identified by a number of historical diggings at Carlaminda. Most holes returned sub-economic gold and copper values however one of two holes drilled along the westernmost structure returned a 4 metre composite sample grading 2.74g/t gold. This area will be included in the future RAB drilling programme.

Two rock chip samples were collected near the SW corner of the tenement area where a small copper working had been noted by past explorers. Whilst sample Yr1 contained anomalous Cu the second sample Yr2 returned 4.4g/t gold and 15.9% copper.

Figure 3: Yalgoo Project Gold Soil Countours

Figure 4: Yalgoo Project Copper Soil Countours

Figure 3 highlights the gold targets and Figure 4 shows both the copper soil targets and the location of the high grade rock chip mentioned above.

Exploration work being planned by the Aurox technical staff includes the following:

Remote Sensing

Aurox acquired high resolution satellite and magnetic data and aerial photography which previously was not available, for both the Yalgoo and West Pilbara project areas.

The new digital datasets and interpretations has assisted in developing new exploration targets and enhance the understanding of the complex geology at Yalgoo and the associated occurrences of gold, copper and possibly nickel mineralisation.

Soil Sampling

Infill soil sampling to further delineate and extend the significant anomalies produced from the recently completed programme is planned for the Yalgoo project. Soil sampling targets, including the interpreted, highly prospective Mallina Shear Zone in the West Pilbara will commence upon the tenement being grant, which is expected to occur in the near future.

Ground Magnetics

A high definition ground magnetic survey is planned for selected areas across the Yalgoo project to assist in identifying lithology, structure and contacts bounding potential mineralisation.