King River Resources has moved to acquire the high-grade Mindoolah gold project, 70 kilometres northwest of Cue in Western Australia’s Murchison region.
Historic mining at Mindoolah dates back to the early 1900’s and delivered an eye-watering average grade of 19.02 grams per tonne (g/t) gold for more than 5700 ounces.
Back then, miners were limited by water and depth, with workings stopping around the 20-metre level. In other words, they barely scratched the surface of what modern explorers now chase with rigs, geophysics and modelling software.
The tenure package covers about 100 square kilometres of highly prospective greenstone, much of it under shallow cover and largely underexplored.
Management believes the true source of the historic high-grade reefs has never been properly tested using modern geophysics, ultra-sensitive soil geochemistry or systematic drilling, leaving plenty of blue-sky potential.
Plentiful walk-up drill targets are represented by abundant gold occurrences in rock chips and outcropping quartz veins along strike from old workings and pits at Mindoolah.
Historical drilling in the 1980’s at one prospect called Excelsior jagged 4m grading 9.3g/t gold from 33m and 4m grading 8.85g/t from 32m, sitting quietly underneath old workings. These hits suggest that unmined gold lodes extend to depth.
High-grade gold trench sampling averaging 6.08g/t gold was noted at another prospect, Cundy, while at a third, dubbed Excelsior Southeast, quartz vein sampling 120 metres from the main pit assayed 9.98 g/t gold.
There are also numerous rock chips exceeding 15 g/t gold at the nearby Bertrams and Le Soliel prospects.
King River Resources managing director Graham Gadsby said: “Our mandate is clear: we are zeroing in on high-grade gold opportunities within proven mineralised corridors where we can deploy our expertise to create value rapidly. The project’s historical production grade of 19.02 g/t Au is a testament to the exceptional quality of this mineralising system. The fact that high-grade intercepts such as 4m @ 9.30 g/t Au remain unmined at shallow depths represents a compelling opportunity that has been overlooked for decades.”
Geologically, Mindoolah ticks boxes gold explorers love, with a variety of Archaean rock types present. The project sits in the Youanmi Terrane, where mafic volcanic rocks, banded iron formation and amphibolite are intruded by a large monzogranite body.
Gold mineralisation occurs as quartz reefs and stockworks, ranging from one to five metres in width within and around this intrusion, a setting that has delivered multiple high-grade deposits across the Murchison, including Big Bell, Day Dawn and Blue Bird.
Under the terms of the agreement King River has secured an exclusive option for $225,000, with the right to buy the project outright for $600,000 cash. The option may be exercised at any time prior to its expiry on 30 June 2026.
Mindoolah shapes up as a classic revival story. If modern tools can unlock what early miners could not reach, King River may have just dusted off a forgotten goldfield and given it a very modern second life.
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