Legacy Minerals starts exploration at newly-pegged Black Range epithermal gold project
Newmont Mining previously explored Black Range in 1992, and no further on ground has been undertaken since.
Legacy Minerals (ASX: LGM) has announced it will commence exploration at the newly-pegged Black Range low sulphidation epithermal gold project in New South Wales’ Lachlan Fold Belt.
The greenfields project is considered to be a highly-prospective and underexplored system, with key prospects such as Sugarbag Hill having last been subject to on-ground exploration in 1992 by Newcrest Mining.
Newcrest relinquished the tenement in 1993 and no further exploration has been conducted in the area over the last 30 years.
Black Range is believed to host low-to-intermediate sulphidation mineralisation in association with large scale silica-sericite-pyrite alteration zones (up to 2.5 square kilometres).
Historical data shows large extents of mapped “silicification/chert” which remain unsampled and require petrography to assess the potential for paleo-water table lithology or sinter.
Legacy’s systematic exploration across the project area will include mapping, rock chip sampling and petrography to vector future exploration based on the interpretation of the features of a low-sulphidation epithermal deposit.
Geological similarities
Chief executive officer Christopher Byrne said the company was keen to realise the similarities between Black Range and its flagship Bauloora project in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt.
“We have begun the process of applying our systematic exploration approach and modern geophysics to Black Range … we believe it will have many geological similarities to Bauloora,” he said.
“Bauloora is an extensive epithermal system secure a second extensive epithermal system means our shareholders now have additional exposure to potential discoveries.”
World-class location
Black Range is in the central part of the Lachlan Fold Belt, which hosts world-class copper-gold orebodies including Cadia-Ridgeway, North Parkes and Cowal.
The project is a late Devonian/early Silurian volcanic system dominated by acid volcanics and widely-distributed rhyolite to dacitic volcanism with lavas, breccias and tuffs associated with epithermal mineralisation.
A 5.2sqkm zone of silica-sericite-pyrite alteration has been mapped at Black Range with low-sulphidation gold mineralisation intercepted in historical shallow percussion and diamond drilling.
Mr Byrne said interpreted low temperature quartz and low-iron sphalerite associated with the gold mineralisation indicates the project may host a large, preserved epithermal environment.