White Hills
The Company holds two EPMs (140 sq km) in the Connors Arch area of Central Queensland.
The historic deposits are structurally controlled and located along the eastern margin of the Hecate Granite. They are similar in style to the district's largest producer, the high grade Dittmer Mine.
The Company proposes to complete detailed evaluation of the high grade prospects, with a view to developing targets for drilling.
Background
The two non-contiguous project tenements in this area were acquired to cover a multitude of known, but poorly explored quartz veinhosted gold prospects, which are similar in style to the district's previous largest producer, the high grade Dittmer deposit which is located to the south of the White Hills project area. The areas of known mineralisation in the White Hills tenements have been subject to limited surface exploration and remain poorly explored or understood.
| White Hills Project Tenement | ||
| Tenement No. | Tenement Name | Area |
| EPM 14409 | White Hills | 121 sq km |
| EPM 13421 | La-Di-Da | 19.6 sq km |
Location, Access and Topography
The White Hills Project area is located 52 km by road northwest of the central Queensland coastal town of Proserpine and access is via the sealed Pacific highway for 35 km and then by unsealed graded roads and tracks which serve small farms in the area. The two tenement areas, which are located 5km apart, lie on the eastern flank of steep heavily-timbered ranges, and the areas of known gold workings are characterised by dissected topography covered by moderately dense native timbers.
Exploration and Mining History
Numerous gold prospects and old underground workings occur within both project tenements. Only limited drill testing of one of the historical mine workings (White Hills) appears to have been undertaken.
Project Area Geology and Mineralisation
The area is predominantly underlain by the Lower Permian Carmila Beds which have been intruded by the Lower Carboniferous Hecate Granite. Most of the known gold prospects in the area appear to be similar with the mineralisation occurring as narrow quartz and quartz-sulphide veins in tensional faults and shears around the eastern margin of the Hecate Granite (Figure 10). At surface the quartz veins are extensively iron stained and often gossanous; descriptions from some of the underground mines indicates that pyrite is the dominant sulphide often accompanied by variable, but usually minor, base metal sulphides. The close association of gold mineralisation with the margins of the Hecate Granite strongly suggests that it was the source of the mineralising hydrothermal fluids.
The White Hills prospect is described as consisting of one main irregular quartz vein with a strike length of about 280m and a second 15m wide zone of multiple small quartz veins traceable over an 800m strike length. Twenty three chip samples returned values of between 0.01-4.2g/t Au, with six samples contained more than 1g/t Au. The Golden Gusher and Crazy Cat workings appear to lie on the same 3km long set of quartz veins and records from Golden Gusher Mine indicate that the high grade lode mined from underground ranged from 0.2-0.7m wide with grades ranging from 45-120g/t Au. Twenty four selected chip samples from a 1.8km long by up to 300m wide area returned values of up to 42g/t Au with 10 samples returning values of better than 7g/t Au.
Exploration Potential
White Hills known mineralisation within the area appears to occur as narrow quartz-sulphide fissure-fill veins. The numerous individual areas of gold workings within the project tenements provide encouragement that there is potential to discover sufficient resources to support a centralised processing plant. The ubiquitous presence of sulphides associated with gold mineralisation suggests that IP may assist in delineating zones for drill testing.
Exploration Programme
Compilation and detailed assessment of all available historical data has been completed. This will be followed by detailed evaluation of individual high grade targets.