Katanning Gold Project, WA (AUC interest 100%)
Figure 1. Regional map showing the KGP, other Ausgold projects and mineralised greenstone belts
The Katanning Gold Project (KGP) is located 275km south-east of Perth and approximately 40km north-east of the town of Katanning in south-west Western Australia. The tenements cover 4031km2 of the Katanning Greenstone Belt in the south-west corner of the Yilgarn Craton, which is renowned for hosting many of Australia’s biggest and best gold deposits.
Exploration on the Katanning Greenstone Belt has been limited compared to other Archaen greenstone belts within the Yilgarn, but several companies have conducted campaigns since Otter Exploration first discovered gold in the area in 1979. Small-scale open-cut mining of the Jinkas and Dingo deposits also occurred between 1995 and 1997.
Figure 2. Katanning Gold Project location map
Ausgold has held tenements in the area since 2009 when it listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
In early 2017, following a change in management, the Company began a thorough re-interpretation of the KGP geological model taking into account all drilling conducted from late 2015 until that point.
The re-interpretation has provided a better understanding of the high grade controls of the mineralisation within the project area, highlighted the continuity of mineralisation along the Jinkas and White Dam-Frasers trends and, along with the additional drilling, significantly extended the known strike length to 18km.
In August 2017, with the benefit of the improved geological understanding and information gleaned from the recent drilling, Ausgold announced an updated resource estimate for the KGP of 20.98Mt grading 1.17g/t Au for 785,500 ounces of contained gold, of which 358,101 ounces are in the Measured and Indicated categories.
Completed by SRK Consulting, the new resource incorporates the Jinkas, Dingo, White Dam, Jackson, Frasers and Lone Tree prospects.
Figure 3. KGP resource and prospect locations
There remains a multitude of untested, drill-ready targets within 10km of existing resources and significant greenfields potential within the broader KGP landholding.
Ausgold’s near-term priorities are to grow the resource beyond 1 million ounces of gold, improve the grade to ~ 2 g/t and move into the project study phase.
The area covered by the KGP tenements is freehold land, meaning it is not subject to Native Title. The project is also well serviced by infrastructure including grid power and sealed roads.
GEOLOGY AND MINERALISATION
Gold mineralisation at the KGP occurs broadly as well-defined stacked lodes described as orogenic shear-hosted deposits that have undergone post-mineralisation deformation. Associated gold remobilisation has resulted in the formation of pipe-like structures of elevated grade. Along the mine corridor, three mineralised trends have been identified showing strong continuity (Figure). Mineralisation strongly conforms to three NNW trends seen in magnetic geophysical imagery. Regular, tight fold hinges identifiable in the images are host the high grade pipes. Each trend contains low grade mineralised haloes around these high grade pipes.
High gold grades have a strong relationship with magnetic pyrrohtite, making targeting through VTEM a practical solution over a large region, particularly where transported cover has limited soil anomalism (Figure).