NickelX adds 42sq km to footprint at Biranup gold project
NickelX’s new ground is in the same gold corridor that hosts the world-class Tropicana and Voodoo Child deposits.
Junior explorer NickelX (ASX: NKL) has expanded its gold footprint in Western Australia’s Albany Fraser Oregon by lodging exploration licence applications over 42 square kilometres near the Biranup project in Western Australia.
The applications will bring the total project area to 216sq km within the Oregon’s northern gold corridor, which also hosts the world-class Tropicana and Voodoo Child deposits (owned by AngloGold Ashanti (ASX: AGG) and Regis Resources (ASX: RRL), as well as the emerging Hercules and Atlantis gold discoveries.
Tropicana contains a resource of 10.3 million ounces grading 1.7 grams per tonne, and was recently valued at approximately $3 billion.
Hercules is believed to be spatially coincident with the Black Dragon shear zone, which hosts NickelX’s high-priority Black Dragon and Red Dragon gold targets, as well as a 250km gravity structural feature which passes through Tropicana.
The feature has been considered a possible control on the formation of major gold deposits such as Tropicana.
Limited exploration
The new licence area has been subject to limited exploration and is expected to build on work achieved at Black Dragon and Red Dragon.
Black Dragon is marked by an area of sub-cropping basement surrounded by colluvium and wind-blow sand.
Gold mineralisation is associated with quartz veining, hematite breccia, iron-rich sheared basement schist and gneiss and sericite-altered granite with disseminated pyrite.
Individual veins of up to 5m in width can be traced at surface for 30m along strike, while multiple mineralised veins have been recorded, dominantly striking in an east-northeast-west-southwest and north-south direction.
NickelX said limited historical drilling has failed to explain a surface gold-silver-tellurium anomalism or provide information about the orientation, structural controls, genesis, or source of mineralisation.
Biranup drilling
In December, NickelX commenced a targeted drilling program at Biranup to build on previous exploration results which returned up to 626g/t gold in rock chip samples.
The diamond program was aimed at understanding structural and textural information on the mineralisation to allow the company to plan for future programs at the “grossly underexplored” target.