Australia Gold JV - Exploration Commences

RNS Number : 9018N

Power Metal Resources PLC

03 February 2021

 

3 February 2021

Power Metal Resources plc

("Power Metal" or the "Company")

Australia Gold Joint Venture - Exploration Commences

Power Metal Resources plc (LON:POW) the AIM listed metals exploration and development company is pleased to announce an update in respect of Red Rock Australasia Pty Ltd ("RRAL") a joint venture company with gold exploration interests near the historic mining centre of Ballarat in the Victoria Goldfields.

Power Metal has a 49.9% interest in RRAL, with Red Rock Resources plc (LON:RRR)  holding a 50.1% interest.

Paul Johnson Chief Executive Victoria Officer of Power Metal Resources plc commented:

"As promised with the grant of licenses as announced yesterday RRAL have moved quickly to launch ground exploration with further information on the initial programmes outlined below.

Given over 12 million ounces of mined gold in the Ballarat West and Ballarat East mining camp, we are particularly eager to expedite exploration as RRAL targets a major gold discovery in the Victoria Goldfields, Australia."

Background

RRAL announced on 2 February 2021 the grant of three of its exploration licence applications in Central Victoria, Australia - EL007271, EL7281 and EL7285.

The granted tenements comprise approximately 215km² and form a key part of RRAL's central to south Ballarat project group.  These tenements (along with current applications) surround and overlie the existing Ballarat West and Ballarat East mineralized lode systems - a mining camp reported to have produced over 12 million ounces.  Modern production continues today at the Ballarat East mine.

RRAL is beginning work immediately on evaluating previously identified areas of interest within all tenements.  A map showing the granted licenses and providing the location of prospects named below may be viewed on the POW website through the following link:

https://www.powermetalresources.com/p/238/exploration-map-1

INITIAL TARGETED EXPLORATION PROGRAMME

Granted License EL007271

Coincident geochemical and radiometric anomalies from early work along with historical reconnaissance mapping and sampling has already identified three strong prospects in EL 007271 to the south of Ballarat.  These prospects are considered as possible southern extensions to the main lode systems of Ballarat.  All three (O'Laughlin, Scotsburn and Enfield) are a high priority for immediate work.

The O'Laughlin prospect is coincident with a broad potassic anomaly and weakly anomalous geochemical signature.  It covers minor hard rock historical workings that remain largely undocumented whilst areas of alluvial workings exist in the valleys on the side of the main ridge confirm the likelihood of gold shedding from within the prospect area.  Nearby, Scotsburn displays a similar geochemical and radiometric signature and sits north along strike from O'Laughlin. 

The Scotsburn prospect comprises a more consolidated line of workings for over a kilometre to the well-known Locomotive Extended mine and shafts north of Buninyong (southeast of Ballarat).

The Enfield prospect (or Monmouth prospect) covers the historical area of the Monmouth and Happy Thought mines which are also largely undocumented however the prospect area is considered potentially to cover the southern extension of the Ballarat West lode system.

RRAL has already initiated a comprehensive soil sampling program over the areas in conjunction with detailed field mapping. The sampling is using both traditional MMI (mobile metal ion) low level analytical methods as well as evaluating the efficacy of portable XRF as a cost-effective alternative allowing a significantly higher number of samples to be collected with a shorter turnaround for results. In conjunction with the extensive soil sampling, field mapping and discrete sampling of quartz veins both within workings and newly identified at surface will be undertaken. It is anticipated that the outcomes of the first phase of exploration, if successful, will lead to confirmation that significant mineralization is present and will allow drilling to commence later in the year. 

Granted License EL 007285

To the north EL007285 is considered to hold the northern extension of the Ballarat West lode system and further work on compiling historical data into a 3D model to facilitate drill planning is under way.

Satellite Data Analysis

A further exploration tool in use is satellite data from the Aster and Sentinel-2 satellites, where using machine learning, our consultants have trained five statistical classifiers, called Linear Discrimination Functions (LDFs), on the Au occurrences to recognize gold mineralization from 16 spectral abundances unmixed from the Aster mosaic, and have similarly created a classifier from the ten reflective bands (unmixed into 16 spectral abundances) from the Sentinel data.

This satellite thermal and high spatial resolution VNIR/SWIR (visible and near-infrared/short-wave infrared) imagery may be used to extrapolate gold occurrence information out to the rest of the project area. Identification of minerals in the scene from spectral unmixing may also inform geological understanding of the area.  

This extra exploration layer, continuously refined, along with geophysics, geochemistry and geological interpretation may improve drill targeting and the odds of discovery in a brownfields environment such as the Ballarat Gold Fields

THE BALLARAT PROJECT AREA

Geology

In general terms, the geology of the Ballarat South project comprises a thick sequence of Ordovician turbidite sediments. The sediments have been folded and subsequently faulted under east/west compression.  During the compressional phase, some brittle deformation occurred, resulting in the development of several reverse faults. 

These reserve faults as well as bedding plane slip within shales have acted as conduits for fluid flow from within the metamorphosed sedimentary pile.  Gold hosted quartz veins formed as a result, often in complex arrays of orientations within a broadly mineralized envelope.

Overlying the sediments in part is extensive flows of Tertiary age volcanism.

Previous Exploration

The Ballarat region has seen exploration activity since the initial discovery of gold in the 1850s with mining progressing from surface alluvial mining to deep lead mining to some hard rock mining over a period of 80 years. From the 1980s onwards interest in the area renewed as explorers completed first phase surveys including broad airborne geophysical surveys, soil sampling, and mapping.

Their work included minor exploration drilling focused largely upon the Ballarat East and West lodes.  Whilst they did identify numerous other targets, limited technology for evaluating mineralisation beneath the cover particularly the lava flows restricted much of the exploration.  This coupled with a fluctuating gold price has left much of the region surprisingly underexplored. 

As a result, RRAL can now capitalize on the positive results reported in the previous literature and continuously learn from the progress of current exploration in the region, and is fast tracking exploration efforts with an initial focus on already identified prospects.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Joint Venture Company - RRAL

RRAL is a joint venture company 50.1% owned by Red Rock and 49.9% owned by Power Metal Resources plc ("POW"). Paul Johnson, CEO of POW and Andrew Bell are directors of RRAL.

Applications

RRAL has lodged applications for sixteen new gold exploration license areas covering approximately 2,336 km² in the Victoria Goldfields of Australia as follows:

License Application Number	Project Name	Area (km2)
EL007271 (granted)	Blue Whale	133
EL007281 (granted)	Blue Chip	74
EL007282	Blue Sky	489
EL007285 (granted)	Blue Ribbon	8
EL007294	Red Queen	130
EL007301	Mt Bute	85
EL007327	Blue Stocking	60
EL007328	Blue Yonder	168
EL007329	Evergreen	486
EL007330	Blue Angel	202
EL007385	Sardinia	4
EL007460	Kilmore West	349
State land within EL007271 [EL007505 EL007506 EL007507]		[9 9 8]
EL007540* (3 competing applications)	Outer Ballarat	148
Total		c 2,336

* Balmaine Gold Pty Ltd, Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd, and Loddon Gold Pty Ltd have put in competing applications the same day as RRAL for the ground covered by EL007540. The application considered to have greatest merit will eventually be given priority.

The technical information relating to planned exploration in this report is compiled by David Holden, BSc, MBA, MEM,  who is a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists. Mr Holden has experience in the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration. Mr Holden is the Exploration Manager of RRAL.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) 596/2014 as it forms part of UK domestic law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ("MAR"), and is disclosed in accordance with the Company's obligations under Article 17 of MAR.

For further information please visit https://www.powermetalresources.com/ or contact:

Power Metal Resources plc
Paul Johnson (Chief Executive Officer)	[phone]
SP Angel Corporate Finance (Nomad and Joint Broker)
Ewan Leggat/Charlie Bouverat	[phone]
SI Capital Limited (Joint Broker)
Nick Emerson	[phone]
First Equity Limited (Joint Broker)
David Cockbill/Jason Robertson	[phone]

Notes to Editors:

P ower Metal Resources plc (LON:POW) is an AIM listed metals exploration and development company seeking a large scale metal discovery.

The Company has a global portfolio of project interests including precious metals exploration in North America and Australia together with base metal exploration in Africa. Project interests range from early stage greenfield exploration to later stage prospects currently subject to drill programmes.

The Board and its team of advisors have expertise in project generation, exploration and development and have identified an opportunity to utilise the Company's position to become a leader in the London market for investors wishing to gain exposure to proactive global metals exploration.

 

END

 

 

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