Terrain Minerals has kicked off a maiden air-core (AC) drilling campaign at its Larins Lane base metals-gold-silver prospect to test for what it believes could be a deposit analogous to 29Metals’ hulking Golden Grove operation in Western Australia’s Mid West region.
The company plans to drill 145 holes for 2500m in two priority categories on three separate main targets and a handful of unexplained anomalies at Larins Lane, which sits within the greater Smokebush project. The program is following up possible primary polymetallic mineralisation indicated by Terrain’s previous mobile metal ion (MMI) soil geochemistry.
The company considers its prospect to feature geological and mineral analogues with the highly-productive Golden Grove complex that sits further to the north and in the same greenstone belt.
Terrain proposes its Target 1 will be tested with 42 holes, of which 13 are of secondary priority. Work at the target is designed to further evaluate a big MMI gold anomaly measuring about 700m by 250m.
Target 3 is proposed to be tested with 67 holes, of which 37 are of secondary priority. The program will assess a big MMI nickel, copper, silver and gold soil geochemical anomaly in an area measuring about 1100m by 350m, with common areas of overlap between the elevated elements.
Target 4 will be struck with 32 holes, of which 11 are of secondary priority. The plan is to test a big MMI nickel, copper, gold and to a lesser extent silver – and potentially polymetallic – soil geochemical anomaly in an area measuring about 900m by 400m, but which at this stage is still open to the south-east.
The three targets are distributed along a north-west/south-east geological trend indicated by total magnetics data, which could reflect a greenstone belt, cross-cut at its southern end by an east/north-east-striking dolerite dyke immediately north of Target 4.
Terrain’s Smokebush project lies within the Yalgoo mineral field about 350km from WA’s capital of Perth and 85km east/north-east of the Perenjori township.
The Larins Lane prospect, in the south-east of the Smokebush project, has been interpreted as a 4km-long by 300m-to-400m-wide Archean greenstone unit sandwiched between two monzogranites.
It is thought to lie in the same – or a geologically-similar – part of the Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt that hosts the Golden Grove mining centre, which is about 60km further north along the same Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt and about 225km east of Geraldton.
Golden Grove consists of two operations which are 3km apart – the Gossan Hill underground mine that was discovered in 1971 and the Scuddles underground mine, unveiled in 1979. Both are Archaean volcanic-hosted massive sulphide copper-lead-zinc-gold-silver deposits.
Terrain’s maiden drilling will be pivotal as it will not only be looking to confirm one or more styles of potentially economic metal anomalism, which will warrant further testing, but it will also test the effectiveness of MMI geochemistry in seeing through surface cover and revealing what really lies beneath.
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By Doug Bright
