Impact Minerals (ASX: IPT) has agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the Huonville gold district through the purchase of a 55-square-kilometre tenement located approximately 25 km south-east of Broken Hill in New South Wales.
The acquisition expands Impact’s contiguous landholding around Broken Hill to approximately 1,800 sq km, further consolidating its position surrounding the giant Broken Hill lead-silver-zinc deposit.
The Huonville tenement covers most of the historical goldfield of the same name, where small-scale mining between 1931 and 1935 – particularly at the Panama Hat workings – focused on shallow quartz veins.
Impact considers the Huonville ground prospective for large copper and copper-gold systems based on exploration concepts developed during its participation in the inaugural BHP Xplor program.
Strong Historical Assays
Legacy rock chip sampling from historical workings has returned strong gold assays, including numerous results above 10 grams per tonne gold and values up to 82g/t, with associated silver, bismuth, copper, molybdenum, and tungsten.
The metal association is characteristic of iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) systems, and the Huonville goldfield has previously been identified as a potential IOCG target in government weights-of-evidence modelling.
Limited shallow drilling around the historical workings has not replicated the high-grade rock chip results, suggesting at least some near-surface gold enrichment and highlighting that many historical drill holes were not ideally oriented.
Earlier exploration across the broader Broken Hill region largely focused on silver-lead-zinc mineralisation, with gold often not assayed and many shallow holes failing to reach bedrock.
Impact has progressively built its ground position south of Broken Hill through earlier acquisitions and exploration at prospects such as Dora East, where narrow quartz veins with copper-gold mineralisation were identified near surface.
Data Integration Underway
Impact is currently reviewing and synthesising all available historical data from the Huonville area to integrate it with results from a recently completed ground magnetotelluric survey.
The company will use the combined dataset to prioritise areas for follow-up work—including detailed mapping, additional rock chip sampling, and further ground geophysical surveys intended to guide the identification of priority targets for initial drill testing beneath the near-surface weathered zone.
The acquisition is subject to ministerial approval and includes the replacement of a $10,000 security bond, $25,000 in cash, and $125,000 in Impact shares issued at the five-day volume-weighted average price and held in voluntary escrow for six months.
A 1% net smelter royalty is payable to a previous owner of the tenement, with Impact stating it sees no reason why regulatory approval should not be granted.
“Huonville is the final piece of the jigsaw at Broken Hill, where we have spent the past decade assembling the largest ground-holding in the region, surrounding one of the world’s great mines,” managing director Dr Mike Jones said.
“The area was identified as a potential IOCG target […] and we are eager to see the results of our recent magnetotelluric surveys completed nearby to explore what might lie at depth.”
