XRF Analysis Indicates Elevated Levels Of Pathfinder Elements
St George Mining Limited (ASX: SGQ) has received early positive results from its exploration activities at its Paterson Project, located within the Paterson region of Western Australia.
The company’s maiden drill programme at the Paterson Project commenced in early June with 10,000m of planned air core (AC) and reverse circulation (RC) drilling. This programme comprised a number of wide spaced drill traverses designed to test the lithology and depth of cover across a 35km strike of prospective stratigraphy at St George’s E45/5226.
Encouragingly, multiple drill holes intersected prospective basement rocks including chalcopyrite bearing, intensely altered and gossanous metasediments.
Executive Chairman, John Prineas, said St George believes these rocks are indicative of potential base metal and gold mineralisation in the project area.
Follow-up drilling by diamond core is scheduled for October.
“The inaugural drill programme at our Paterson Project is delivering great results with confirmation of basement rocks that are known to host major copper and gold deposits in the Paterson region,” Mr Prineas said.
“The RC rig has done its job at Paterson and has now mobilised to our Mt Alexander nickel-copper sulphide project in the Goldfields to drill a range of new targets as well as complete some resource definition drilling. We will announce more about the Mt Alexander drilling shortly.
“The next phase of drilling at Paterson will be with diamond core drilling – this will be deeper drilling to further test the emerging copper and gold targets that we have identified.
“A diamond rig is scheduled to arrive at Paterson in mid-October, which gives us time to first complete an important airborne EM survey over the high-priority areas of interest. The data from this survey will assist to better define the copper and gold targets for the diamond drilling.
“We are also pleased to launch our first exploration work at our second Paterson tenement – E45/5422 – with a gravity survey to be completed there later this month.
“The Paterson region has already delivered several major copper and gold discoveries. As a new entrant to the region, we are excited that our maiden drilling programme has delivered such encouraging signs about the fertility of our ground for base metal and gold mineralisation.”
Paterson drilling:
To date, 35 drill holes have been completed by AC/RC drilling for 6,264m drilled.
Drilling in the southern part of the tenement intersected basement rocks and confirmed the depth of cover as <180m, which is relatively shallow for the region and highly explorable.
The cover sequence in the northern area of E45/5226 has a higher clay content and higher water table than elsewhere in the tenement. This area is more suitable to diamond drilling than AC/RC drilling and a number of the planned holes in the northern area are now scheduled to be drilled with diamond core in October.
Petrography:
Petrographic analysis has been completed on samples from a number of drill holes at the Paterson Project. The petrography was completed by Dr Ben Grguric, principal of Mineralium Pty Ltd and a mineralogist with industry leading credentials particularly in the field of base metals.
An initial group of six bottom-of-hole AC drill samples was submitted for petrographic characterisation. The samples are from a single line of drilling across a number of interesting magnetic features.
All of the drill holes that were sampled intersected variably weathered schists, which are interpreted to be derived from sedimentary and felsic volcanic rocks.
The bottom-of-hole sample from PRC009 contained pyrrhotite and minor chalcopyrite in primary textures, indicating that this sedimentary unit may be in part sulphidic, an important source of sulphur for the formation of sedimentary copper deposits. This lithology, in conjunction with the interpreted structural setting, has similarities to the stratigraphy of the lower Yeneena Basin.
The lithology identified by the petrographic analysis has positive implications on the prospectivity of our Paterson Project for base metal and gold deposits, as this lithology is known to host major deposits in the region – including the Winu copper-gold deposit of Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) and the Nifty copper deposit of Cyprium Metals (ASX: CYM).
Upcoming work programmes and results:
The upcoming exploration programmes and results for our Paterson Project include the following:
- Assay results for maiden drill programme, expected next month;
- Airborne EM survey at E45/5226, scheduled for early October with results to follow quickly;
- Gravity survey for E45/5422 and E45/5226, scheduled for later this month with results to follow quickly; and
- Diamond drilling for E45/5226, scheduled to commence by mid-October.
For further information please visit: https://stgm.com.au/
