Typhoon Possibly Next Gold Rush to Storm The Gawler Craton
THE INSIDE STORY: Tyranna Resources (ASX: TYX) controls more than 9,700 square kilometres of ground in the northern Gawler Block of South Australia’s Gawler Craton. By Ron Berryman
Tyranna Resources is hoping the results of drilling at the company’s Jumbuck gold project later this year will herald the next million ounce deposit in this resource-rich region.
The company has identified seven priority gold prospects from more than 14,000 metres of drilling in 2016 on land surrounding the one million ounce Challenger gold mine, which it believes could confirm a major deposit from the results of their latest drilling campaign.
The 2016 drilling program was aimed at exploring for high-grade open pit gold mineralisation within trucking distance of the Challenger operations.
South Australia’s Gawler Craton has been likened to the Albany/Fraser Belt adjacent to the Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia, which is host to the 6.3 million ounce Tropicana gold deposit.
The Gawler Craton is also host to a number of major mines including Challenger, which has produced one million ounces of gold at six grams per tonne gold since 2002.
Tyranna Resources managing director Bruno Seneque is upbeat about the project and especially the two most recent prospects to be drilled, Typhoon and Greenwood.
“We have just finished drilling at Typhoon and we are about to re-commence the second half of the program,” Seneque told The Resources Roadhouse.
“There is about 400 metres of strike to the north of the main structure the gold is associated with and the drill results we have been getting there are as high as one metre at 50 grams per tonne gold.
“What we are looking for is another Challenger.
“When that deposit was discovered it caused a gold rush to the Gawler Craton from 1995 to 1999 and we are hoping our project will do the same.
“It will be a case of ‘watch this space’ if we hit the jackpot with Typhoon.”
Tyranna Resources has locked up as much prospective ground as possible within a 100 kilometre radius of the Challenger mine, where it has since identified seven main prospects.
“We are focussing now with RC (reverse circulation) drilling at Typhoon and Greenewood because they have returned the best gold intercepts and we believe they tick the boxes for the next potential Challenger gold mine,” Seneque said.
“From the results we have already received, we believe Typhoon could be a Challenger look-alike – so to speak.
“The northeast-southwest magnetic feature at Typhoon remains open along a mineralised strike of 400 metres at both ends and the southern extension can be traced a further 300 metres.”
Final assays from early drilling carried out at Typhoon included:
13 metres at 3.88g/t gold from 47m, including 4m at 10.8g/t gold; and
5m at 2.55g/t gold from 70m, including 1m at 7.5 g/t gold.
More recent drilling of 65 RC holes for 5,200m at Typhoon and Monsoon, which started in March 2017, intercepted gold from surface of one metre at 2.46g/t gold, while one bonanza intersection returned one metre at 50.7g/t gold.
The 13 holes completed recorded numerous mineralised intercepts in all sections to date.
Typhoon and Monsoon are located 39km south of the Challenger gold mine while Greenewood is 37km north.
Follow-up drilling at Greenewood provided Tyranna Resources further reasons for optimism with a range of excellent shallow intercepts, which included:
14m at 5.8g/t gold from 35m, including 6m at 11.5g/t gold;
8m at 4.08g/t gold from 20m;
6m at 6.81g/t gold from 53m;
3m at 8.26g/t gold from 26m;
6m at 2.17g/t from 36m; and
8m at 3.35g/t gold from 55m.
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Seneque said Greenewood offered outstanding potential for a resource increase by deeper down-dip drilling and by northern extensional drilling to follow up on hole 073, which returned eight metres at 3.35g/t gold in the primary zone.
“Our drilling program, at the moment, is for 2,000 metres of strike drilling at Typhoon,” Seneque explained
“From there we will take the rig up to Greenewood where we will carry out about 3,000 metres and some scoping studies at two other prospects, Campfire Bore and Golf Bore.
“The drilling to be conducted at Typhoon will focus on the strike extensions to the northeast and southwest along the magnetic structure which is parallel to gold mineralisation intersected in recent drilling.
“The key to our approach is improving our knowledge of exploration in this area.
“The geology is different to WA’s Eastern Goldfields where you’ve got gold in the host rock basically occurring at surface.
“In this area it’s much more deformed, under a bit of cover and we’re using various geochemical tools for target generation purposes.
“We have taken that process a few steps further and spent a bit of money on research and development and looked at various other extensions of gold in calcrete.
“We’re trying to be smarter about our exploration and building up our IP and we’re getting results.”
The Resource at the Jumbuck gold project is shallow and early drilling went down to about 70 to 80 metres, however, the company is looking at going deeper with its latest program.
Seneque said the new drilling would look at adding further ounces to the Jumbuck resource at Typhoon while at Greenwood the company will be hoping to define further depth extensions.
“Once we have hit on that we are home and hosed,” he said.
“We’re going to chase it down at deeper levels and once we understand how it extends at depth we’re basically talking about drilling out another Challenger.”
WPG Resources, which owns and operates the Challenger gold mine, is a Joint Venture partner with Tyranna (71 percent), which controls and manages the Jumbuck gold project.
“We can feed our ore through the Challenger mill as part of our Joint Venture agreement with WPG,” Seneque continued.
“The Challenger mill has a capacity of 600,000 tonnes a year but there is talk of increasing it to 800,000 tonnes.”
Tyranna Resources expects to announce a maiden resource estimate for the Typhoon gold prospect later this year.
Seneque believes it could be something that makes everyone, “sit up and think”.
Tyranna (49%) also has a tin prospect (the Zealous tin prospect) with Alliance Resources (51%) at the Wilcherry project in South Australia, 100km northwest of Whyalla as part of the Wilcherry Joint Venture.
Historic drilling at the Zealous prospect intersected significant tin grades including:
20m at 1.29 per cent tin from 42m;
12.3m at 1.1 per cent tin from 119m; and
10m at 1.23 per cent tin from 128m.
Recent RC drilling, which encountered deep regolith consisting of kaolinite and very fine sand, has been suspended and will be continued with diamond drilling once a rig has been sourced.
The RC drill was relocated to the Weednanna gold prospect where excellent gold intercepts had been previously report including:
49m at 6.3g/t gold from 45m, including 21m at 10.7g/t gold from 48m;
10m at 6.8g/t gold from 79m, including 3m at 15.5g/t gold from 81m; and
2m at 61.1g/t gold from 167m.
Tyranna Resources Limited (ASX: TYX)
… The Short Story
HEAD OFFICE
Level
679 Murray Street
West Perth WA 6005
Ph: (08) 9485 31040
Email: info@tyrannaresources.com
Web: www.tyrananresources.com
DIRECTORS
Joseph Pinto, Bruno Seneque, Nick Revell, Frank Lesko