A geochemical sampling program by Venus Metals Corporation at the westernmost licences within its Mangaroon North project in Western Australia’s emerging Gascoyne region has turned up two base metal anomalies that have been earmarked for further assessment.
The company says it took about 1100 soil samples and 39 rock‐chip samples from across two of its tenements during the survey. The target areas had previously been defined by detailed magnetic and radiometric surveys.
After preliminary portable XRF scanning to prioritise samples for analysis, a total of 780 soil samples from selected areas of interest and the 39 rock chips were sent off for gold and multi‐element analysis. Management says the results suggest the presence of base metal anomalies that appear to coincide with a narrow, ridge-like zone with elevated gravity that stretches for 30km.
It believes the copper and zinc anomalism relates to ironstones, the Kiangi Creek Formation and a dolerite dyke, with up to about 0.4 per cent copper and 3936 parts per million zinc in rock-chip samples taken from iron-rich shales. The anomalism is also broadly associated with elevated cobalt, nickel, antimony and molybdenum, which the company says may indicate polymetallic enrichment and could reflect the surface expression of bedrock stratabound base metal mineralisation.
Venus says that could make it analogous to other base metal occurrences in the region, including the Discovery and Kiangi Creek formations of the Edmund Group that hosts high‐grade stratiform mineralisation at the world‐class Abra Mine.
That mine’s lead-silver deposit features copper-gold mineralisation at depth, while other high lead values of up to 8954ppm lead (about 0.9 per cent) detected in recent laterite over dolostone are thought to relate to the Irregully Formation.
Management has so far defined one copper-lead-zinc anomaly at its south-eastern licence and a copper-lead-zinc anomaly of similar areal extent in its north-western tenement. Follow-up work will be designed for both areas.
Venus also noted that a specimen of ferruginised breccia in shale returned 0.4 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from an area that has previously been identified as a rare earths anomaly. Similar rare earths soil anomalies are known to exist in parts of the Pooranoo Metamorphics and the Pimbyana Granite.
The company says it is planning further surface sampling to identify potential near-surface target zones for polymetallic mineralisation in the Mangaroon Syncline. It is also planning a regional airborne electromagnetic survey to target potential conductors that might indicate stratabound polymetallic mineralisation and/or mafic-ultramafic-hosted nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation similar to that found at the Money Intrusion.
Venus is turning up quite a variety of targets in a long-neglected area transected by several major regional scale structures. It features plenty of tantalising geochemical sniffs and now time and persistence will reveal what the company’s extensive tenure has to offer.
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By Doug Bright
