JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Venturex Resources has identified two areas of significant gold anomalism at the Loudens Patch and Mays Find prospects at its Whim Creek copper/zinc project, in Western Australia, following a successful programme of reconnaissance sampling of creek draining outcropping areas of Fortescue Group.
At Loudens Patch, samples were collected from the active part of creeks draining the southern end of a ridge of Mt Roe Basalt, including intermittent conglomerate outcrop. This is directly along strike from De Grey Mining’s recent discovery of gold nuggets.
At Mays Find, creek sampling was completed over a strike length of 1 km at the northern end of a 5 km-long zone of the prospective sequence. This area was selected because of the historical discovery of fine gold in panned concentrates adjacent to a broad gold-in-soil anomaly .
While historical exploration did not identify the source of the gold, Venturex concluded after reviewing the historical work that the gold may have been sourced from the conglomerates, and subsequently undertook a sampling program of small first and second order creeks over about 1 km of strike.
The sampled creeks all drained into the creek containing the original gold discovery.
The next gold exploration phase at Whim Creek will include additional sampling of the 1st and second order creeks draining the Mays Find area, detailed mapping of the conglomerate and sedimentary units, and targeted rock sampling along the 5 km to 6 km length of the Mays Find area.
This planned follow-up work is anticipated to start in the first quarter of 2018, subject to gaining access to the project area. Access to the project area during this time of the year can be impacted by the Pilbara wet season.