Impact Minerals Ltd (ASX:IPT) is boosting its footprint in the highly prospective Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales.
Impact has applied for three new exploration licences both adjacent and close to its existing wholly-owned Commonwealth Project.
The new licences are prospective for gold, silver and base metals similar to that found at the Silica Hill Prospect at Commonwealth.
At Silica Hill, Impact recently made a breakthrough discovery of high grade gold and very high grade silver.
Highlights include: 41.3 metres at 2.0g/t gold and 176 g/t silver (4.7 g/t gold equivalent) from 61 metres.
This intercept included: 16.3 metres at 3.7g/t gold and 246g/t silver (7.6g/t gold equivalent); and 1.7 metres at 3.8g/t gold and 1,176g/t silver.
Dr Mike Jones, managing director, commented:
"The work we have done at Commonwealth over the past three years has shown that rocks on both the eastern and western side of the Molong Belt which hosts the Cadia-Ridgeway Mine and which were perceived to be relatively unprospective, do in fact have tremendous potential for the discovery of deposits similar to the Commonwealth deposit and our emerging high grade gold-silver discovery at Silica Hill.
"We have also shown that good detective work using good old fashioned geological thinking and field work can lead to exploration breakthroughs.
"Like Commonwealth when we acquired the project, this new ground contains abundant mineralised locations most of which have not been drilled and are poorly understood.
"They are exciting projects to be working on."
The licences will be wholly-owned by Impact and will not form part of the investment agreement with Squadron Resources Pty Ltd.
New license details
The new licences bring Impact’s total ground holdings in the Lachlan Fold Belt to 1,000 square kilometres.
The belt is home to numerous gold and copper mines including the Cadia-Ridgeway deposits that contain more than 25 million ounces of gold and 10 million tonnes of copper.
Squadron Resources investment
The Commonwealth gold-silver-zinc-lead project and also Impact’s Broken Hill platinum-copper-nickel project are part of an investment agreement between Impact and Squadron Resources Pty Ltd.
Squadron is part of the Minderoo Group which represents the philanthropic and business interests of Andrew and Nicola Forrest.
Analysis
For Impact to be able to put its foot on such a significant ground holding in the richly mineralised Lachlan Fold Belt is a very positive development for the company.
Once the licenses are granted, Impact can then conduct a comprehensive review of previous exploration data before commencing field programs.