Mining

Catalyst Metals and Navarre Minerals hit bonanza 831g/t gold at Tandarra project

Go to Imelda Cotton author's page
By Imelda Cotton - 
Stavely Minerals ASX SVY Victoria copper gold project exploration

Stavely Minerals’ geologists have prioritised 19 regional targets for follow-up exploration.

Copied

Catalyst Metals (ASX: CYL) and Navarre Minerals (ASX: NML) have hit a bonanza 831 grams per tonne gold in drilling at the Tawry prospect within the Tandarra joint venture in Victoria.

A single diamond drill hole completed as a follow-up to significant broad zones of gold mineralisation returned in earlier reconnaissance aircore work made the “outstanding” intersection of 12.9m at 33.1g/t gold from 66.4m, including 0.5m at 831g/t gold.

It was located at an 8m zone of mineralised quartz breccia within a massive shale unit from 69m.

The breccia zone was oxidised and broken, with several sections of core loss in fault pug zones which Catalyst believes could contain further mineralisation.

Other highlight intervals from the single hole were 1m at 2.5g/t gold from 153.5m; 1m at 1.2g/t gold from 173.4m; and 1m at 1.3g/t gold from 226.6m.

Previous wide-spaced reconnaissance drilling at Lawry returned assays of 20m at 1.5g/t gold from 56m; 1m at 10.5g/t gold from 86m; 9m at 2.0g/t gold from 57m; and 2m at 10.3g/t gold from 102m.

Reynolds trend

The Lawry prospect lies on the Reynolds trend — a lightly-explored structure located about 250m east of the main Tomorrow trend, which is the most advanced prospect at Tandarra.

Catalyst technical director Bruce Kay said assays show that Reynolds is also well mineralised and justifies an infill drilling program next field season.

“The extremely high grade gold intersection at shallow depth on the Lawry prospect means that there are now three parallel zones of gold mineralisation with high grades at the Tandarra project,” he said.

“This gold distribution is similar to that mined at the historic Bendigo goldfield which produced 22 million ounces of gold so we are excited to continue drilling next season.”

Joint venture

Tandarra is a joint venture between Catalyst (51% equity) and Navarre (49%), situated along the Whitelaw gold corridor which is considered to be a major structural control of gold mineralisation north of Bendigo.

In Victoria, Catalyst manages the entire Whitelaw gold belt and has interests in 13 exploration licences and two retention licences which extend for 75 kilometres along the Whitelaw and Tandarra Faults north of Bendigo and in other areas north of the Fosterville and Inglewood goldfields.