DiscovEx Resources has continued to build the prospectivity of its Sylvania project near the Western Australian town of Newman after its maiden soil-sampling program returned anomalies of up to 78 parts per billion gold and 1315 parts per million lead – close to the epithermally-enriched mineralised Prairie Downs fault zone.
The company says it is the first time the zone has been investigated for gold, highlighting its potential upside.
The most compelling base metals results were revealed at its Husky prospect and the Sylvania inlier margin, where values of up to 679ppm lead associated with siltstones and shales of the Jerrinah Formation, intersected the Prairie Downs fault zone. Management says it reaffirms the shear structure as a major conduit for fluid-enriched mineralised zones.
A zone of semi-continuous lead anomalies along the unconformable western contact of the Fortescue Group returned assays of up to 327ppm lead, potentially opening up a new play concept.
DiscovEx says its geochemical survey confirmed that the Prairie Downs fault zone and its splay characteristics are integral to its highlighted anomalies. The work was also designed to fingerprint the surface zinc-lead-copper-gold expression of historic drill intercepts to help benchmark its new anomalies.
The survey spacing was on a 400m-by-200m grid and focussed on high-graded outcrop and subcrop areas. The soil results demonstrate the presence of anomalous gold trends of up to 3.5km long and 150m wide that follow a north-west orientation coincident with the underlying geology and zones of shearing and alteration.
The Prairie Downs fault zone is host to the Prairie Downs zinc-lead-silver resource of 2.98 million tonnes at 4.94 per cent zinc, 1.59 per cent lead and 15.0 grams per tonne silver.
DiscovEx Resources managing director Toby Wellman said: “The prospect pipeline at Sylvania continues to grow, with the identification of additional gold and base metal targets proximal to the Prairie Downs Fault Zone.”
DiscovEx has two major WA-based gold and base metals projects. Sylvania is adjacent to Capricorn Metals’ Karlawinda project that has a mineral resource of 86.7 million tonnes going 0.8g/t gold for 2.1 million ounces, while the Edjudina project north-east of Kalgoorlie is along strike from Matsa Resources’ Fortitude project that has a mineral resource of 8.1 million tonnes at 1.9g/t gold for 489,000 ounces.
The latter project contains the Hornet East and West prospects that gave assays of 1m at 5.3g/t gold beneath soil geochemical anomalies. The area also contains the Spartan prospect, where air-core (AC) drilling delivered 1m splits of up to 4.8g/t gold from bedrock and overburden targets. The results came from 188 AC drillholes in a campaign jointly-funded in an 80-20 venture with Gateway Mining.
The market’s microscope will now be focussed on DiscovEx’s next revelations from Sylvania in results from its infill sampling program, an induced polarisation geophysical survey and prospect mapping that will begin later this month to further refine the anomalies and potentially add to the company’s growing portfolio of gold and base metal targets.
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By Gary Kjellgren
