Krakatoa Resources uncovers 30-year-old records showing surface gold at historic Lachlan Fold mine site
Krakatoa’s historic data includes intercepts of 10m at 1.64g/t gold, 10m at 0.99g/t gold.
Krakatoa Resources (ASX: KTA) has discovered records from drilling nearly 30 years ago that hit surface gold intersections and ending in mineralisation — but back then those results were never followed up.
The records are from drilling at the historic Quartz Ridge mine on the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales.
The historic results came from a northern extension of the Quartz Hill deposit and, as well as not being followed up at the time, there has not been any drilling at the site since.
This announcement is just the latest in a rush of news ramping up interest in the many still uncovered mineral secrets of the Lachlan Fold Belt.
Eighteen holes were drilled nearly 30 years ago at the company’s Turon project near Bathurst to a depth of 10m — and, in nine of those holes, mineralisation continued from surface to the end of hole.
The best results were 10m at 1.64 grams per tonne gold, 10m at 0.99g/t, 10m at 0.85g/t and 10m at 0.81g/t.
This news follows an announcement on Tuesday by Krakatoa that it has found gold leads at the Britannia target, also within the Turon project area.
Acquired unclaimed ground surrounded by majors
Turon, 30km north of Bathurst city, covers 120sq km and is located about 50km east of the company’s Belgravia project and 60km north-east of Newcrest Mining’s (ASX: NCM) Cadia Valley mine. It lies within the Lachlan Fold Belt’s Hill End Trough.
Both Quartz Ridge and Britannia were discovered in the 1800s and both mines closed due to water inflows.
Quartz Reef in its heyday supported a town with three hotels, a racetrack, stores, a post office and a school.
Krakatoa executive chairman Colin Locke told Small Caps the company had managed to acquire the Turon project last November by application even though it was ground surrounded by several major mining companies.
The project is also within truckable distance of a processing plant at Hill End.
“Out in Western Australia they are looking for the same type of mineralisation around Menzies that’s 400m lower, and they have higher market caps than we do,” he added.
Krakatoa previously announced rock chip samples from another historic mine site, south of the Dead Horse Reef mine, assaying at up to 1,535g/t.
Quartz Reef an ‘exciting’ shallow opportunity
Dead Horse Reef, which contains an adit (a horizontal passage into a mine) 130m long, lies at the south of 1.6km of old gold workings, with Quartz Reef at the northern end. A chip sample from north of Quartz Hill assayed at 11.3g/t.
The vein quartz is up to 10m wide. Previous explorers have reported numerous significant gold grades from chip and mullock sampling.
The company says Quartz Hill represents “an exciting shallow exploitable opportunity”, with multiple walk-up drill targets where gold indicators have been identified.
Krakatoa’s other Lachlan belt project in NSW is Belgravia, south of Wellington, and lies between Cadia and the recent Boda gold discovery by Alkane Resources (ASX: ALK).