Yindarlgooda Project
The Yindarlgooda Project comprises 1,470km² of semi-contiguous tenements centred some 55 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, which are largely granted. The Project tenements comprise Rubicon-held tenements with all rights, Rubicon-held tenements on which Rubicon has all non-nickel exploration and mining rights, and tenements on which Rubicon does not have tenement ownership, but has all non-nickel exploration and mining rights. The Company plans to explore for both gold and Volcanic massive Sulphide (VMS) base metals.
The Yindarlgooda project is located within the Gindalbie Domain of the Kurnalpi Terrane, bounded to the west by the Mount Monger Fault Zone. The Domain comprises a lower sequence of mafic to ultramafic lavas and volcaniclastic units, overlain by a sequence of felsic volcanics, sedimentary units and banded iron formations in a domal structure informally named the Bulong Anticline or the Yindarlgooda Dome.
The Yindarlgooda area, and particularly the mafic-ultramafic sequence to the west of the dome, hosts a number of gold occurrences, including the Kanowna Belle, Daisy Milano, Randalls and Karonie gold deposits and the Bulong nickel deposits. The project area is located to the east of the highly productive Kalgoorlie-Kambalda-St Ives trend.
The project tenements contain known gold mineralisation at Queen Lapage and Taurus. Approximately 35,000 tonnes at 9.3g/t gold was mined by Croesus Mining NL from the 35 metre deep Queen Lapage open pit and residual mineralisation of a similar magnitude was reported. The Queen Lapage mineralisation is a flat lying, northwest trending linear supergene zone. Previous drill intercepts include 13m @ 15.1g/t gold, 7m @ 57.1g/t gold and 6.5m @ 3.8 g/t gold (mined) and 9m @ 2.70g/t gold (unmined). There has been no drill testing for the possibility of a northwest trending steep structure beneath the pit, controlling the supergene blanket. One of the last exploration holes drilled some 90 metres south of the pit, intersected 3m @ 28.5g/t gold in a vein/structure that has not been followed up. These targets will form early drill targets.
At the Taurus Mining Centre, a significant low grade gold mineralised system was defined and a non-JORC compliant estimate reported in 1995. Gold mineralisation is associated with quartz veins and reefs within a felsic volcanic sequence.
The felsic rocks within the project area, of which the Company has considerable tenement coverage, have long been considered prospective for the discovery of VMS deposits, yet little work has been conducted on this style of mineralisation since the 1980s. Previous exploration focussed on restricted outcropping and gossanous areas of the felsic units, highlighted a significant pyrite body with low grade zinc and copper at Rocky Dam and other base-metal anomalies (e.g. Swamp Dam). Examples of better recorded drill intercepts include 18m @ 0.74% zinc and 0.20% copper and 10m @ 0.25% zinc.
The Company has interpreted that the stratigraphic horizon hosting this low grade VMS mineralisation is continuous and wraps around the entire Bulong Anticline, with a strike length in excess of 50 kilometres within the Company's tenements. Much of this is under lake or other younger sediment cover. The Company will apply the latest conceptual, geochemical and geophysical concepts and exploration techniques in its exploration and in particular, will apply modern electromagnetic (EM) techniques to search for conductive VMS deposits under cover.
The Company has defined a number of gold and base metal prospects for early exploration and drill testing based on a combination of existing mineralisation (Queen Lapage and Taurus), existing gold and base metal anomalism in soil sampling and previous drilling (Wattle Dam gold targets and the Rocky Dam/Swamp Dam VMS occurrences) and the intersection of favourable or historically productive structures with favourable lithologies. Data compilation for the area is continuing and it is expected that significant empirical gold and base metal targets will be generated from this work for follow up.
