Rockfire Resources PLC (LON:ROCK) is a gold and copper exploration company focused on Australia with projects in Queensland.
A key part of the company’s strategy is to concentrate its exploration efforts on areas where there is existing infrastructure, including processing plants. By focusing its efforts near existing mills, the company ensures that it doesn’t end up with stranded assets that can’t be put into production.
David Price is the chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Rockfire Resources; he has more than 30 years of experience in the global mining industry. He was previously the CEO of Golden Tiger Mining, Convergent Minerals and MD of Millennium Mining.
The company’s most advanced project is the 100%-owned Lighthouse Project, which is located around 50 kilometres (km) southeast from the town of Charters Towers (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Location of Rockfire Resources’ Projects
Source: Company
Within the Lighthouse Project, Rockfire has defined a number of prospects including Plateau, Double Event, Split Rock, Cardigan Dam and Lower Lighthouse. Within these prospects the company has identified numerous styles of gold mineralisation including epithermal, vein- and breccia-hosted and deep-seated porphyry targets.
The most advanced of these prospects is Plateau. Plateau hosts gossanous and jasperlitic veins and gold-bearing breccia at the margin of a rhyolite plug. Drilling at Plateau has intersected some huge intersections of low-grade gold (Au) mineralisation within the rhyolite plug (Figure 2), including:
- 177 metres (m) at a grade of 0.5 grams per tonne (g/t) Au from the surface;
- 154m at a grade of 0.2g/t Au from a depth of 97m;
- 171m at a grade of 0.4g/t Au from a depth of 26m;
- and 170m at a grade of 0.4g/t Au from a depth of 37m.
In addition, drilling has also returned large intersections of higher-grade gold within the andesites (Figure 2), including:
- 12m at a grade 2.5g/t Au from a depth of 61m;
- 16m at a grade 1.7g/t Au from a depth of 27m;
- and 10m at a grade 2.0g/t Au from a depth of 65m
Figure 2. The Location of Selected Drill Results at the Plateau Gold Prospect
Source: Company
Rockfire believes that at Plateau it has discovered a similar gold deposit to Mt Wright (Figure 3), located just 47km away, which has produced over 1.5 million ounces of gold. At Mt Wright gold mineralisation has been defined to a depth of 1,000m while Rockfire has only tested to a vertical depth of just over 200m at Plateau (Figure 3). Mt Wright also contains at depth several large pods of higher-grade gold mineralisation, over 2g/t Au; Rockfire plans to test the theory that deeper drilling at Plateau will define similar pods of higher-grade gold mineralisation.
Figure 3. Comparison of the Plateau Prospect to Mt Wright
Source: Company
The Mt Wright analogy is supported by the work done by the pre-eminent North Queensland geology expert Gregg Morrison, who developed a multi-element geochemistry classification and zoning model that was used to characterise the Mt Wright Gold Mine and shows many similarities to the Plateau Prospect.
Rockfire is currently planning a deeper drill programme at Plateau which is expected to commence in the second half of 2020.
