Desdemona Project
The Desdemona Project tenements cover approximately 1,410km², of which approximately half is granted, and are located between 10 and 60 kilometres southeast of Leonora. The Project tenements comprise Rubicon-held tenements with all rights, Rubicon-held tenements on which Rubicon has all non-nickel exploration and mining righs, and tenements on which Rubicon does not have tenement ownership, but has all non-nickel exploration and mining rights.
Tenements straddle the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone within the northern part of the Archean Kurnalpi Terrane and cover parts of the Gindalbie, Menangina and Murrin sub-terranes. The tenements are grouped into two sub-projects based on the overall geology, separated by the Melita Fault.
The western Kookynie sub-Project covers the Kookynie and Melita areas. The Kookynie greenstone belt is characterised by a rhyolite-basalt succession together with interbedded sedimentary rocks and abundant iron-rich mafic rocks, including the Niagara Complex, a layered mafic-ultramafic intrusive body that hosts much of the gold mined in that area. Historic gold production from the Kookynie mine camp exceeds 500,000 ounces. There are several different styles of gold mineralisation in the area. Gold at the high-grade Cosmopolitan mine was hosted in quartz veins at the contact of the Puzzle Granite and the Orient Well and Butterfly deposits are associated with shallow north to northeast dipping, contact-parallel shear zones within basalt, dolerite and rhyolite. Gold typically occurs in quartz veins with alteration selvages containing disseminated pyrite.
The eastern Yarri sub-Project mainly covers the Yerilla greenstone belt, which is structurally complicated and extends along the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone. The north-south striking basalt-rhyolite succession east of the Melita Fault is the continuation of the sequence that hosts the Teutonic Bore and Jaguar VMS deposits north of the Company's tenements. Comparisons have been made between the lithologies in the Melita greenstone belt and the host greenstones at Kidd Creek in Canada (139 Mt @ 6.5% zinc, 2.3% copper, 0.4% lead, 89g/t silver) and the area is therefore considered prospective for VMS mineralisation. A number of small-scale, high-grade historical gold workings and prospects, including the Yilgangi and Yerilla gold mines, are associated with subsidiary structures within the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone. Recent gold discoveries include Apollo Hill-Porkies Well and the Wallbrook deposits. Much of the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone is concealed beneath younger cover related to Lake Raeside. Exploration has also identified copper and platinum mineralisation in association with a layered mafic intrusion at Heron Well (excised).
The Yerilla greenstone belt has not been systematically explored for base metals and has potential for the discovery of world class VMS deposits through application of modern concepts and exploration techniques. A significant zinc-copper-lead gossan that assayed up to 7.7% zinc, 0.6% copper and 1.0% lead, was identified at Melita Airstrip in 1971, immediately north of the Company's tenements. Drilling intersected low grade base metal mineralisation and associated alteration. The Company proposes to use the latest concepts and exploration techniques in the search for base metals; in particular the use of high resolution EM will be applied to base metal exploration
Previous exploration has demonstrated gold anomalism coinciding with the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone and high grade veins in the Kookynie greenstone belt. The Company's tenements extend for over 110 kilometres along this structural corridor, where gold resources and past production in this geological environment southeast of Leonora exceeds one million ounces.
The compilation of the large database of exploration data is in progress. The discrimination of exploration that has effectively tested bedrock in this largely covered terrain is important to prioritise possible bedrock targets. The Company holds a significant ground position around historic workings at Kookynie that pose an immediate opportunity for drilling beneath shallow cover to target projections of known mineralised occurrences.
