Mining

Western Mines Group launches major exploration program at Melita gold-base metals project

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Western Mines Group ASX WMG Melita copper lead zinc VMS

Field work will focus on the Princess Melita deposit, which hosts historic high-grade gold workings.

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Western Mines Group (ASX: WMG) has commenced a major field exploration program at its Melita gold-base metals project on the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt in Western Australia’s eastern goldfields.

Work will focus on the historic Princess Melita deposit and aims to produce a litho-structural interpretation of the area using multi-element soil sampling, high-resolution ground magnetic surveys and geological mapping.

The company also hopes to highlight anomalous areas of gold and pathfinder geochemistry.

The results will be used to define initial gold and copper-lead-zinc VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) targets for a first-pass aircore drilling program.

Trends and patches

Western Mines has identified two parallel trends and gold prospecting nugget patches and scrapings associated with Princess Melita, extending along a cumulative north-south strike of approximately 4km in the project’s western portion.

Three satellite-based targets associated with the area have shown “interesting” alteration signatures and follow a similar north-south trend along major structures and geological contacts.

Recent rock chip results have confirmed the location of the Airstrip copper-lead-zinc gossan, first identified in 1971 and mapped approximately 400m from the end of the Melita Station airstrip.

Prolific mining centre

The Melita project covers an area of approximately 105 square kilometres close to the prolific Kookynie gold mining centre in the heart of WA’s goldfields region.

It is located north of the historic Niagara, Kookynie and Orient Well-Butterfly gold mining centres which have an estimated combined past production of over 600,000 ounces.

It is also close to the 1.6 million ounce Ulysses project owned by Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD).

Kookynie has recently become a hub of exploration for other juniors including Saturn Metals (ASX: STN), Azure Minerals (ASX: AZS), Kin Mining (ASX: KIN), Metalicity (ASX: MCT) and Carnavale Resources (ASX: CAV).

The Melita tenement is considered relatively underexplored compared to parts of the surrounding area.

It was the focus of copper-zinc exploration during the 1970s and 1980s, with analogies drawn to the well-preserved, VMS-rich Noranda camp in Canada.