Alchemy Resources Limited (ASX:ALY) has high-resolution UAV magnetic surveys underway at the 100%-owned Karonie Gold Project in Western Australia in areas where it plans to carry out near-term drill testing.
These aerial surveys will help give a better understanding of the areas from the recent field mapping and aid in interpreting basement geology and mineralisation trends.
Four separate detailed magnetic surveys are being flown with drones to better define existing and new targets along strike from current resources and at new regional targets at Western Brown and Gilmore.
Seven-day program
The company has engaged Pegasus Airborne Systems to refine these targets with the program expected to take around seven days to complete with results and interpretation expected to be completed in late October.
Chief executive officer James Wilson said: “Concurrent with our proposed drill programs, we have engaged Pegasus Airborne Systems to complete a very detailed drone-based geophysical survey over high priority areas at Karonie.
"I am very keen to define the structural framework that potentially hosts mineralisation north and south of the nearby Aldiss Mining Operations, which remains poorly tested by modern exploration methods.
"The geophysics will give us the detail needed to ensure our target generation is efficient and any follow-up drilling planned is as effective as possible.”
Survey targets
Surveys will be conducted over the structures to the north of the existing Taupo and KZ5 resources, Karonie east and to the south at the new greenfields Western Brown lakes target and the Gilmore trends.
UAV magnetic survey areas at Karonie.
Geophysical surveys at Karonie are designed to give Alchemy the requisite detail in the trends of mineralisation being observed in recent drilling.
Understanding the structural framework has been a key area of focus over the last nine months supported by detailed field mapping completed earlier this year.
Alchemy sees exploration opportunity along strike from existing resources at Karonie and historical reconnaissance drilling has proven to be largely ineffective or too wide spaced to target the short strike length but high-grade structures.
Improved resolution
It believes that high detail magnetics will provide much better resolution to target the magnetic dolerite host rock, as well as the key north-south and north-east trending structural features, which are key elements of the mineralising events at Karonie.
Two surveys are planned around the Aldiss Mining Centre to better understand the structures that control mineralisation at the Karonie Prospect.
The northern Karonie survey area will be used to aid in advancing the understanding on mineralisation controls for the Taupo and KZ5 resource.
High-resolution magnetics will assist Alchemy in determining the strike extent of potential mineralised structures to the north for up to 3 kilometres along strike from these areas.
Karonie East survey area is a newly defined area of interest. This area has wide-spaced drilling with RAB drilling that was relatively ineffective at testing basement geology.
The magnetic survey will assist defining new drill targets in structurally disrupted magnetic dolerites, which are the typical host of gold mineralisation in the Karonie area.
Regional targets
Western Brown is a newly defined 2 square kilometre greenfields target identified during recent fieldwork. It is defined by a magnetic dolerite disrupted by a major NE-striking fault corridor; these NE fault corridors commonly control mineralisation throughout the Karonie province.
The intersection point of the fault corridor and the magnetic dolerite is interpreted to be in the middle of a large Salt Lake and has never been drill tested.
UAV magnetic survey areas for the newly defined Western Brown and Gilmore targets.
The same NE-striking fault corridor that intersects the dolerites at Western Brown also disrupts fractionated magnetic dolerites at Gilmore prospect.
Both have seen very little effective drilling, with a majority of RAB drilling at Gilmore not being able to penetrate transported cover to test basement geology.
The high-resolution magnetic survey will be used to better map the dolerite units and structures to aid hole planning for the phase 3 drill program at Karonie.
Along strike from Aldiss
Karonie Project is directly along strike to Silver Lake Resources Limited’s Aldiss Project and along strike to the south of Breaker Resources NL (ASX:BRB)’s Lake Roe Gold Project.
The project is in close proximity to existing processing plants and given the already large gold endowment in the area, Alchemy will focus near-term exploration on the discovery of additional high-grade gold mineralisation adjacent to these areas.