A review of historic data at Core Lithium’s (ASX: CXO) new Adelaide River Gold Project in Australia’s Northern Territory has identified several advanced gold prospects.
The Adelaide River Gold Project, comprising exploration licence application EL-31886, is located 25km south east of Core’s flag-ship Finniss Lithium Project near Darwin.
High-grade nickel and cobalt potential also appears to have been overlooked, exemplified by the diamond drill intersection in of 6m @ 0.5% U3O8, 0.51% Co, 0.28% Ni & 0.52% Cu.
In addition, a number of historic uranium mines are hosted within the tenement, including Adelaide River and George Creek mines, which produced 3,800t of pitchblende ore at 0.5% for 19t U3O8 that was used as supplementary feed for the Rum Jungle processing plant (BMR Record 1958-0042).
Core Lithium’s Managing Director, Stephen Biggins, said the Adelaide River prospects have received only limited exploration to date, and the broader tenement area is covered by very small soil sampling grids and geophysics.
He said Core believes the very high-grade gold, nickel and cobalt grades are indicative of the potential of Core’s Adelaide River Project, which has been overlooked due to the proximity of uranium mines. The available data suggest the high-grade gold mineralisation and the uranium are spatially separated and unrelated.
Core plans to undertake further research, assessment and interpretation of the historic datasets and exploration information for the Project over coming months, and expects to update the market as the company refines its understanding of the Project and progresses plans to commence initial fieldwork on this exciting new gold Project during Q2 2020.
“We opportunistically applied for EL-31886, knowing that the district has a strong gold endowment.
“We are still firmly focussed on the development of the Finniss Lithium Project, however see this new project as a way of leveraging our exploration team and NT experience to add value for Core’s shareholders.
“The Pine Creek area in the NT is also home to several large gold projects including Cosmo Howley, Union Reefs and Brocks Creek.
“We look forward to extending our NT exploration program to cover Adelaide River over the course of 2020.”
Gold mineralisation at Adelaide River is hosted in gold vein systems similar to those at the nearby Cosmo gold mine, operated by Kirkland Lake Resources, which is progressing an underground mine development at the nearby Cosmo gold mine and plan to establish a significant gold mining centre in the Pine Creek region of the Northern Territory.
