Gold research ‘promising’

CSIRO research has identified several new prospective gold-mineralisation sites along the flanks of Navarre Minerals’ ‘Stawell Corridor’ gold project in Victoria.

The findings, along ‘Irvine’ and ‘Langi Logan’ basalt areas, are the result of a collaborative project involving the national science agency and Navarre Minerals.

The Stawell Corridor is an extension of a corridor of rocks that produced historical Stawell and Ararat goldfields.

Federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science partly financed the research project under an Innovation Connections scheme. Navarre Minerals paid the balance.

Navarre Minerals managing director Ian Holland said the research showed there was significant potential to apply computer simulation, not only for mineralisation at depth at Irvine and Langi Logan, but also for five other basalt domes in the Stawell Corridor project.

He said earlier research on nearby Magdala gold deposit in Victoria, now owned by Stawell Gold Mines, had provided a deep understanding of the structural evolution of a multi-million-ounce gold system. He added that this had been used as a template to predict where gold mineralisation might occur on other basalt domes within the Stawell Corridor.

Mr Holland described the outcome from its collaboration with CSIRO as ‘cutting edge’ and ‘exciting’.

“Our Stawell Corridor gold project contains at least seven ‘Magdala’ analogues in a 70-kilometrelong tenement package south of, and on strike of, Stawell’s four-million-ounce Magdala gold mine,” he said.

Mr Holland said Magdala’s gold mineralisation was believed to have resulted from periods of high fluid flow during episodes of high geological strain.

He said the aim of the CSIRO research project was to reduce the search space along the corridor by predicting areas of potential concealed gold mineralisation that could be targeted with direct drill testing.