Shree Minerals’ gold hunt now leads to the Lachlan Fold Belt

Shree Minerals (ASX: SHH) has made its fourth gold acquisition of 2020 with a move into the heart of the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, applying for ground in close proximity to historic gold fields.

The ground is located just 15km from the famed Hill End goldfield where in 1872, Australia’s biggest ever gold specimen — the Holtermann Nugget — was discovered.

The company has lodged an application for an exploration licence for ELA6044, 15km north of the regional city of Bathurst.

Thie ground covers a sequence of structures similar to those of the Hill End goldfield, 15km to the northwest.

The modern Hill End project is held by Pure Alumina (ASX: PUA), formerly listed as Hill End Gold, and has a mineral resource of 4.68 million tonnes at 3.3 grams per tonne gold, for a contained 501,552 ounces of gold.

Shree said there are nine gold occurrences within its tenement application area that are aligned in a north-northeast direction. These comprise shafts, shallow workings and areas of alluvial mining that have had no modern exploration.

Previous work by exploration companies have returned anomalous gold and base metals geochemistry associated with volcanic rocks.

Neighbouring Hill End produced 3,000oz gold nugget

Hill End in its heyday was home to 7,000 people and 28 hotels and its success was a factor leading to the foundation of the Sydney Stock Exchange in 1871.

The following year Bernhardt Holtermann, partner in the Star of Hope Gold Mining Company, found the specimen named after him — 1.5m long, weighing 290kg and containing 3,000oz of gold.

To the east of Shree’s latest ground application area are tenements held by Krakatoa Resources (ASX: KTA) and Alkane Resources (ASX: ALK).

At the Quartz Ridge project, Krakatoa is targeting a 1.6km gold mineralised trend that has returned rock chip samples grading up to 1,530g/t gold and an intersection from surface of 10m at 1.64g/t gold.

Shree said initial work at its new NSW project will focus on historic workings and, in particular, potential extensions of the gold mineralisation defined by Krakatoa.

Shree pivots to gold projects

Shree, which was previously primarily focused on developing a direct shipping iron ore project, last year began moving into gold. In March 2019, it acquired the Golden Chimney project, 180km north of the Western Australian gold mining town of Kalgoorlie and 13km south of the Ulysses gold mine originally mined by the former Sons of Gwalia and now held by Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD).

Earlier this year, Shree added additional ground to Golden Chimney.

In late June, the company formed a joint venture with unlisted Territory Lithium to explore the latter’s Northern Territory ground for gold and base metals.

That deal set up the Arunta joint venture, which takes in the Box Hole, Edwards Creek and Bruce projects in the NT. Exploration results showing gold have been reported by all the previous owners of these projects.

Edwards Creek, 100km north of Alice Springs, was explored in 1980 by the former CRA Exploration (CRAE), an arm of what is now Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO).

In mid-July, Shree secured what it calls two “highly prospective” tenements 60km from Norseman, WA, in the Albany Fraser Belt.

Historical drilling intersections grading up to 3g/t gold remain open and one tenement remains untested by reverse circulation drilling.