Middle Island Resources has been quietly beavering away, pulling together a swag of new gold prospects and a 2km long nickel anomaly at its Sandstone project in Western Australia. It has also increased its footprint around the newly discovered Crosswinds copper prospect in the Northern Territory.
Sandstone’s open pit mineral resources currently stand at 746,500 ounces of contained gold from numerous deposits within the project tenure. An aggressive drilling campaign in 2020 doubled the previous resource and discovered five new shallow satellite deposits.
Middle Island has set about further increasing the overall gold resource-inventory at its multi-deposit project, completing a first pass auger drilling program across the Sandstone and Jew Well tenements.
A total of 536 holes were plugged down to a depth of one to fourteen metres targeting the bedrock horizon below transported cover. According to the company, sieved samples were analysed using a portable x-ray fluorescence – “pXRF” scanner. While this method does not give a whole quantitative analysis, it is cost effective and useful in highlighting significant trace elements associated with gold mineralisation in the early stages of exploration.
At Sandstone, the auger geochemical survey identified five new prospects, including Nugget Patch 1 & 2, Mt Kempt, 3 Mile, 2 Mile West and Wirraminna North, in areas with limited historical drilling.
Interestingly, the company reported gold nuggets have been unearthed at Nugget Patch 1 & 2 and 3 Mile, begging the question “what is their source?”.
At Jew Well, the auger geochemical survey was conducted over a strong magnetic feature identified in open-source aeromagnetic data. Preliminary assessment of the soil samples utilising the pXRF highlighted a 2km long nickel anomaly coincident with interpreted underlying ultramafic rocks.
The company said further interpretation of the historical datasets and the detailed magnetic and radiometric surveys flown in 2020 is ongoing and will provide further context for the auger anomalies that will be infill sampled and prioritised for drill testing.
In the Northern Territory East Tennant region, Middle Island tantalised the market when it revealed “significant” copper oxide mineralisation was encountered at surface at Barkly’s Crosswinds prospect during a reconnaissance exploration mission.
The company reported spot pXRF-gun readings of between 24.8 per cent and an extraordinary 76.2 per cent copper at Crosswinds, with composite chip samples across an aggregate interval of 130 metres assaying an average 0.76 per cent copper.
Two new contiguous permits totalling 809 square kilometres of prize territory have been granted to Middle Island, boosting the company’s tenure to a whopping 5,220 square kilometres across 13 exploration licences. It has until the 31st of October 2023 to negotiate a Native Title agreement with the Central Land Council.
Middle Island’s new exploration licence application area sits along strike from its recent Crosswinds copper discovery, which in turn lies about 50km south-west of an encouraging, recently completed copper-mineralised MinEx CRC drill hole.
That hole encountered widespread disseminated-to-blebby sulphides below 89.5m depth to the end of hole at 416.3m and included pyrite, pyrrhotite, marcasite, chalcopyrite – a copper sulphide – and arsenopyrite, possible pointers to mineralisation.
Further exploration over the Barkly tenure has been gaining momentum over the past 2 months with Middle Island reporting a scope of works has been signed for an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey to be completed later this year which will be co-funded by the Northern Territory’s Geological Survey. Follow up ground gravity surveys are also planned now to assist with drill targeting.
At the Crosswinds copper prospect, Middle Island says an induced polarisation geophysical survey is planned to assist with defining the silica-associated hydrothermal source of surficial copper mineralisation at depth and will present a drill ready target in the coming months.
According to MinEx CRC and the NT Geological Survey, the East Tennant region in the NT is emerging as one of Australia’s most exciting exploration frontiers.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
