Venus Metals Corporation believes the presence of mafic-ultramafic rocks discovered during recent exploration at its Youanmi base metals and lithium projects make the area prospective for gold and base metals mineralisation.
The rocks were found along an east-south-east trending structure that comes off the Youanmi shear zone close to Ramelius Resources’ Penny gold mine, about 550km north-east of Perth.
Recent regional aeromagnetic data compiled by CORE Geophysics identified several structural targets about 4km east of the Penny mine.
Air core drilling of 46 holes covering 1200m tested geochemical anomalies and structural targets that confirmed the presence of sheared mafic-ultramafic bedrock.
The company is planning air core and RC drilling to search for gold mineralisation similar to the Penny deposit.
Anomalous rare earth elements were detected in several holes including a maximum discovery of 3770 parts-per-million lanthanum-cerium-yttrium.
Venus says a further assaying for a full suite of rare earths is underway.
Results from recent fine soil and portable X-ray fluorescence analysis also show anomalous chromium and nickel concentrations along magnetic features.
Venus argues the results show a more widespread mafic-ultramafic bedrock than previously interpreted with fine soil sampling for precious metals planned.
The broader Youanmi base metals project is 15km south-west of the Youanmi gold project, a joint venture between Venus and Rox Resources. It boasts a 36km strike length across the Youanmi greenstone belt near the Ramelius owned Mount Magnet gold mine.
Rox Resources holds 70 per cent and Venus holds the remaining 30 per cent of the near mine Youanmi gold project joint venture.
The Penny West deposit was discovered in 1990 and mined as a high-grade open pit in 1990-91, producing about 154,000 tonnes at 18.0 grams per tonne gold for 89,000 ounces.
Spectrum Metals discovered the Penny North lode zone in March 2019 before it was bought by Ramelius in 2020 with an off-market takeover offer.
Ramelius says as of June 2020 the Penny gold mine, that includes the Penny North and West deposits, has a total resource of 620,000 tonnes grading at a respectable 15.0 g/t gold, containing 300,000 ounces.
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By Matt Birney
