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Project Activities
The Company is very pleased to report that a review of its Caltowie (50% and earning up to 90%) and Gladstone (100%) Iron Projects in the Adelaide Fold Belt in South Australia has confirmed the strong iron ore potential as previously reported.
Historical mining of iron ore has been carried out for many years in the Flinders Ranges The region holds many occurrences of banded ironstones and massive high-grade metasomatic iron outcrops. The projects remain under explored and significant potential exists to identify high grade large tonnage deposits of iron ore.
The initial review undertaken by the Company concluded that there is considerable potential to identify large tonnage resources of high grade iron ore in the Caltowie area and the Hicks Quarry area was initially identified as a high priority target. The Quarry was worked between 1896 and 1902 by Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd (‘BHP’) as a source of iron flux for the Port Pirie lead smelter. Approximately 70,000t of high grade ore (~61% Fe) was mined from the quarry. It was apparently the acquisition of the Iron Knob deposits on the Eyre Peninsula that prompted BHP to abandon the Caltowie source and no exploration for iron ore has been conducted since that time. A further review of previous work has identified a second historic open cut iron ore mine at “Huddleston”, which was also used as a source of iron flux for the Port Pirie smelter.
The Company has also identified that drilling for copper and gold in 1998 by a previous explorer in the vicinity of Magnetic anomaly “A” intersected massive haematitic ironstone. The Company has analysed chips from drill hole LRC1 for iron as follows;
Drill Hole LRC1 25 metres at 46.4% Fe from 24 to 49 metres (end of the hole)
This is a highly significant result for the Company and indicates that significant widths and grades of mineralisation are present at shallow depths within the project area. This intersection is open at depth and to the south and east.
A gravity survey was also conducted by previous explorers near magnetic anomaly “D” which defined a gravity high proximal to the magnetic high. The gravity high may also represent high grade haematite mineralisation that remains to be drill tested.
The Company has prioritised the defined magnetic anomalies and the Hicks, Magnetic anomaly “A” and Huddleston targets will have detailed gravity surveys (100m x 100m) conducted over them to define the potential extent of high grade haematite mineralisation. Negotiations with landowners are currently in progress in order to complete this work as soon as possible. The Company is planning to commence an initial drilling programme to test these targets on completion of the gravity survey.
Assessment of iron ore prospects in the Northern Flinders Ranges is scheduled for the near future. Work will focus on the Holowilena banded ironstones where previous CRJ work has delineated a 3km zone with rock chip samples of 45-50% Fe.