Alice Queen Ltd (ASX:AQX)’s Fijian neighbour Lion One Metals Ltd (TSX-V:LLO) has made a significant discovery, which could augur well for the ASX small cap.
Lion One, whose Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project is adjacent to Alice’s Queen’s Sabeto Prospect in the Pacific Rim of Fire in Fiji, has discovered a major new gold feeder structure – 20.86 g/t gold over 75.9 metres at depth beneath the current resource at Tuvatu.
Tuvatu is currently in development with 658,600 ounces in resource and a significant upgrade expected.
The proximity of Lion One’s project to Alice Queen’s gives the company confidence that its decision to move into this region of Fiji was the right one.
“We have always viewed Fiji as one of the world’s great gold addresses and this recent news from our next-door neighbour Lion One Metals, reinforces our decision to pursue exploration opportunities in this underexplored jurisdiction,” Alice Queen’s managing director Andrew Buxton said.
Expanding Fijian footprint
Alice Queen has been doing some heavy lifting in Fiji through its newly registered, 100%-owned company, Alice Exploration Pte Limited.
The company recently applied for the Sabeto Project on the main island of Fiji, Vitu Levu, which sits between the Tuvatu Alkaline Deposit (6.5 kilometres to the east) and the Vuda Prospect, 4 kilometres to the northwest.
Importantly for Alice Queen, Sabeto is on a major regional geophysical anomaly (radiometrics and magnetics) similar to Tuvatu, while Lion One’s success has encouraged AQX to upgrade the Sabeto prospect as it looks for similar results.
AQX has also finalised the acquisition of two Special Prospecting Licences from its local partner Viti Mining.
The transfer has been endorsed by the Mineral Resources Department, with the most prominent prospect, Viani SPL1513, being a low sulphidation epithermal (LSE) prospect with a significant historic soil geochemical anomaly (4 kilometres long), open to the northwest.
This prospect was highly recommended by historic explorer JICA-MMAJ, which discovered the high-grade Hishikari gold mine in Japan (LSE). The recommendation came after JICA confirmed mineralisation over a 700-metre strike length.
The prospect remains fully open and only one target out of five has been drilled to date.
A second prospect, Nabila SPL1514, hosts the discovery prospect of Faddy’s and historic artisanal Mistry’s Mine, connected by a 2-kilometre-long gold anomaly corridor.
Alice Queen believes the gold anomaly has not been fully tested at depth nor along strike. SPL1514 hosts quartz-carbonate-clay polymetallic breccia with numerous sub-surface indicators of a much larger system probably extending over several kilometres.
While AQX secures its expansion opportunities, Sabeto is a key focus.
More about Sabeto
The Sabeto Prospect was previously held by Emperor Gold Mines (EGM – now Vatukoula Gold Mines (AIM:VGM)) and Geopacific Resources Ltd (ASX:GPR) and is just 6.5 kilometres from the Tuvatu Lion One adit and its future plant which is under construction.
Only light exploration has been undertaken to date, with the prospect loosely interpreted as an alkalic-type system. Alkalic-type epithermal gold deposits are among the largest epithermal gold deposits in the world and considered a subset of low-sulphidation epithermal deposits.
Once the licence is granted Alice Queen is looking at carrying out a two-phase approach. Phase one would include:
- An extensive geological mapping program; and
- Reprocessing historical geophysical data (ZTEM).
Phase two would likely look to emulate the CSAMT Survey, a process that has been instrumental for Lion One in targeting the 'deep-feeder zone’ at Tuvatu with 75.9 metres at 20.86 g/t. CSAMT surveys can reach depths of 1,000 metres.