Estrella Resources has confirmed the presence of a slew of multiple stacked pegmatites during field work at its Carr Boyd project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia’s historic Goldfields region.
Management says the outcropping pegmatites can be traced for a few hundred metres before going beneath the cover again and a follow-up works program of mapping and sampling is already underway.
Estrella’s preliminary findings are that the fractionates are occurring in a late east-west fracture set developed off a main north-south corridor of more granitic material. It states that that the information simply proves extensive and thick, fractionated pegmatites exist.
However, there is no assay information as to their prospectivity for lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) minerals at this stage and is not a proxy for laboratory assays.
Carr Boyd is a traditional nickel play sitting 80km north-east of Kalgoorlie and takes its name from the Carr Boyd igneous complex, which has a 78-square-kilometre surface expression hosting several nickel and copper sulphide occurrences. The most significant is the Carr Boyd Rocks nickel mine, which is on the western margin of the complex.
Estrella Resources managing director Chris Daws said: “The discovery of a significant field of stacked, fractionating pegmatites in the Eastern tenements at Carr Boyd is encouraging and, while its early days, it further highlights the project’s LCT potential. Coupled with the additional pegmatite system recently located within the Western tenements, this bodes well for the upcoming work program consisting of mapping and sampling currently underway across the tenements.”
The company previously identified the area as one of its highest exploration priorities. A program of works to drill its Colreavy target has now been granted and flora surveys have recently been conducted ahead of gaining clearing permits to set up for drilling.
Management says the new 3.3km-long southern conductor discovered strikes west/north-west to the south of the Carr Boyd intrusion. Ground-mapping revealed a mixed sequence of mafic sediments, intrusive pyroxene sills and basalts.
Interestingly, the trend contains a coincident gold anomaly related to Great Boulder Resources’ Whiteheads trend that extends from Gindalbie, 25km to the south. Surface gossans have been analysed and show elevated copper and arsenic.
Estrella drilled in the area in 2002 and intersected low-grade gold in a sulphidic shear zone to the north of the newly-identified anomaly.
Several bedrock anomalies to the northern end of the intrusion have also been identified, in addition to an internal anomaly east of the Porphyry Hill horizon at a prospect historically named “Tektite Hill”, which is a layered sequence of prospective mafic gabbroic rocks.
Earlier this year, the company’s share price doubled on the back of it revealing an impending world-first helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey at Carr Boyd. Its next-generation geophysics program follows a 2023 exploration review that collated all previous geophysics survey results, both on-ground and via aircraft, since the 1980s.
The review confirmed that anomalies in the data at Carr Boyd exist, however management believes each previously-applied technique had limitations and nothing definitive was ever identified or adequately tested.
Estrella recently signed an agreement with Canadian-based geophysical firm Expert Geophysics to start its TargetEM survey, in what the company says will be the world’s first full commercial deployment of the system. The survey will cover the company’s entire tenement package at Carr Boyd, spanning some 253 square kilometres, with the aim of locating drill targets that were previously missed while using the older technology.
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By Michael Philipps
