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Exploring Ancient Landscapes” Workshop Held by PIRSA in December 1999

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Exploring Ancient Landscapes” Workshop Held by PIRSA in December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evin J A Wills Tiger International (Australia) Pty Ltd The Flinders Diamond Project area of 5,522 square kilometres is located in the Southern Flinders Ranges between Hawker and Port Augusta. The Project lies near the G2 gravity lineament and contains the densest known concentration of diamond localities and positive indicator mineral results in South Australia. The recent phase of diamond exploration has been carried out by Tiger International (Australia) Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Tiger International Resources Inc, which is a Canadian public company listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. Tiger has spent a total of $1.3 million on the project area since April 1998. Tiger is managing two joint ventures, one with the Springfield Syndicate (informal name) consisting of Jim Allender, Tony Le Brun and Ian Youles, and the other with Amity International of Perth consisting of Jeff Moore and Lynda Frewer. Current plans are to vend the project into a new Australian Public company to be called Flinders Diamonds Limited. The new company’s objective will be to find South Australia’s first diamond mine. Knowledge of landscape evolution and regolith distribution is a very important aspect of the Flinders Diamond Project. To meet its objective, exploration is focussing on locating new kimberlites. From the eight diamond localities and numerous kimberlitic indicator minerals located to date, it is anticipated the some of the kimberlites in the project area will contain macrodiamonds. Worldwide, kimberlites have usually been located by initial reconnaissance kimberlitic indicator mineral sampling and then detailed follow up of secondary dispersion trains in the regolith to locate primary sources. Geophysics, particularly magnetics, has been successful in some areas (eg Ellendale). However, in the Flinders Project area surface concentrations of maghemite make magnetic identification of kimberlitic targets very difficult. Also, the surface expression of kimberlites is often complicated by regolith cover. As kimberlites are normally soft they tend to form depressions that become disguised by other materials. The project area has been reconnaissance regolith mapped at 1:100,000 scale by Perth-based geomorphologist Dr Richard Russell. This work has aided kimberlitic indicator mineral sampling and our general understanding of the area’s landscape evolution. The regolith mapping has been very useful for the following purposes: Definition of areas where cover is over 25 metres deep leading to avoidance in current exploration. Choice of areas where drainage sampling should lead to shallow buried Kimberlites. Selection of areas where drainage sampling is likely to be inappropriate and where undercover drilling should be a more effective technique. Understanding Tertiary geomorphological evolution, as influenced by uplift and faulting, and in particular the understanding of likely sediment transport directions over time and their associated sedimentary deposits. Identification of likely source areas where indicators have been found in Permian and Tertiary sedimentary basins. In conjunction with individual grain abrasion textures, the likely distance to kimberlitic sources. In this case, the effects of weathering and sedimentary transport must be taken into consideration. For instance, chrome diopside may be present in a buried kimberlite pipe, but due to in situ chemical weathering may not even reach the surface. Also, chromite, particularly high-chromium chromites which indicate a high diamond potential, is very soft and is unlikely to travel more than a few hundred metres in a creek bed. Application of the above knowledge has led to the identification of numerous targets for future exploration of the Flinders Diamaond Praoject area. These include the following: Regionally, 90 clusters of kimberlitic indicator anomalies have been identified by previous exploration research and Tiger’s recent exploration. Many of these clusters need to be resampled to obtain new mineral grains so the chemistry of their indicators can be determined. This will enable a ranking of the best targets for more intense follow up sampling. In the Springfield Basin area, the diamondiferous Permian conglomerate at Diamond Ridge has produced 196 diamonds to date and over 22,000 kimberlitic indicator minerals; mostly chromite and pyrope garnet. Other basal conglomerates also contain indicator minerals and three assemblages thought to represent at least three different kimberlite sources have been identified. At the Calabrinda Basin, of probable Tertiary age, large numbers of poorly abraded picroilmenites, chromites and one microdiamond are highly suggestive of a separate nearby primary source. In the catchment of the Springfield Basin, 27 positive indicator anomalies (35%) were located from a first- pass survey of 77 samples. These were followed up by three additional phases of indicator mineral sampling. This work led to six prospects with on-source results. Work at these prospects has consisted of geological mapping, detailed regolith mapping, griding, ground magnetics and soil sampling for incompatible kimberlitic trace elements. At three prospects (KA12A, KA12B and KA113), results were encouraging and undiscovered kimberlites are suspected. At the Hut Hill Prospect surface sampling and undercover drilling has led to a situation with abundant on- source picroilmenite and, immediately uphill, an interesting magnetic target. 4 It is concluded that follow up of these numerous targets in 2000 is likely to lead to the discovery of several new kimberlites. Some of these are expected to contain diamonds, and it is hoped that at least one will contain diamonds in economic quantities. 5 EXPLORATION USING GOLD AND BASE-METAL PATHFINDERS IN CALCAREOUS SOILS Antonio Belperio and Hamish Freeman Minotaur Gold NL 1A Gladstone St Fullarton SA 5063 Exploring under cover traditionally has required extensive and expensive drilling through the cover sediments(RAB, Aircore) to locate areas of anomalous mineralisation in bedrock. Calcrete and calcareous soil sampling of surficial cover at a variety of spatial scales provides a far more cost effective way of locating mineralisation even where bedrock is masked by over 100m of regolith. The technique has been used extensively by Minotaur in its exploration programs over the northern and southern Gawler Craton, the Adelaide Geosyncline and the Curnamona Craton. It is particularly useful at the regional, greenfield exploration stage where prospect scale targets can be generated from large tenements. Gold, copper, arsenic, silver, lead and zinc have all been utilised as pathfinders with various degrees of success. Incremental increase in sample density can be used to delineate robust, coherent anomalies at the surface that provide a direct guide to bedrock drill testing. Thus once calibrated for local response, surface sampling of calcareous soils can result in major cost savings through eliminating regional drilling programs to top of bedrock and guide deeper bedrock drilling directly into prospect scale targets. Exploration for gold on the northern Gawler Craton has been particularly successful, with bedrock mineralisation recorded beneath all significant gold-in-calcrete anomalies on Minotaur’s Commonwealth Hill tenements (southwest of Coober Pedy) drilled to date. Regional sampling on a 1km offset grid has highlighted numerous (40+) regions of anomalous Au (>8ppb) amongst general background levels of 1-5 ppb. Infill sampling of anomalous regions at 200m and 50m sampling density has revealed robust, coherent anomalies peaking at typical values of 30 to 80 ppb Au. Aircore grid drilling has confirmed that in many instances, anomalous mineralisation at top of masked bedrock directly mimics the gold in calcrete anomalism at the surface, to the extent that in the latest programs, aircore drilling was successfully eliminated. RC drilling into bedrock has encountered primary mineralisation with typical intercepts such as : Comet Prospect RCCM 1 14m @ 2.33 g/t Au from 28m (incl 1m @ 8.74 g/t Au) Mars Prospect RCMR1 12m @ 0.60 g/t Au from 32m Aurora Tank RCAT13 20m @ 0.46 g/t Au from 116m (incl 1m @ 3.3 g/t Au) Birthday RCBD44 40m @ 0.05 g/t Au from 60m Arsenic is not always present in soils with the Au, and where present, has been documented to disperse further within the surficial regolith. Copper and zinc pathfinders have not produced any success to date with erratic surface concentrations suggesting significantly wider dispersion and/or variable uptake by other regolithic components. On the southern Gawler Craton and on the southern Curnamona Craton, background levels of 1-3 ppb Au has necessitated a lower (0.1 ppb) detection limit
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