Barlee Project
The Barlee Project is in the northern portion of the Archaean Southern Cross Province, approximately 200km north of Southern Cross in Western Australia (see ASX Announcement 29 September 2023). The belt contains several small gold deposits including the Mt Dimer, the Marda Gold Projects and the Penny Mine (ASX: RMS). The Penny Mine is located 70km north-north-west of Barlee. The Project covers a poorly exposed granite-greenstone terrain, where older mafic-ultramafic Banded Iron Formation (BIF) dominated greenstones, and a younger sediment-felsic volcanic succession are intruded by or juxtaposed to granitoids.
Several previous companies have conducted gold exploration programs within the Project, with two gold deposits within excised tenements central to the Barlee project, namely the Halley’s East and Phils Deposits. The Halley’s East gold deposit produced approximately 19,000 ounces of gold between 2013 and 2015.
Previous exploration work within the Barlee Project has identified several prospects outside of the main Halley’s - Phils prospect area. All have returned anomalous gold intercepts and are still open in several directions, requiring further work. Gold mineralisation at the Lost Bolt prospect occurs in strongly sheared and altered sediments, controlled by a north-north-west shear, parallel to the granite contact. Mineralised intersections at the Lost Bolt prospect include 4m @ 1.8g/t Au from 24m and 11m @ 0.4g/t Au from 18m including 2m @ 1.3g/t Au from 25m. RAB drilling at the Fenceline prospect returned 4m @ 1.07g/t Au from 8m and 8m @ 1.28g/t Au from 8m. Outside of the Halley’s East area, very few drillholes have tested the fresh bedrock with the deepest drillhole on the tenement being 130m.
FMG held the ground from 2015 to 2020 completing aircore drilling targeting gold mineralisation associated with lithological contacts and structures mainly along the western margin of the Project. Drilling intersected several low-level gold anomalies including elevated REE’s in the western granite.
A large BIF unit trends north-south through the project on the eastern side, DKM rock chipping returned assays up to 57.42% Fe.
The southern tenements (granted and applications) of the Barlee Project are contiguous with the Company’s Barlee Project and lie within the Archean Diemals Formation sediments (clastic meta-sediments, conglomerates sandstones and shales) and granites. Previous exploration has been gold-focussed comprising of early-stage exploration defining gold targets from broad spacing auger sampling (2021). These targets have yet to be drilled. The Barlee Project now extends for approximately 38kms covering the prospective Youanmi and Clampton Faults.
