Great Western Exploration Limited (ASX:GTE) Secures Government Funding To Drill Giant Copper-Gold Targets

(MENAFN- ABN Newswire)

Great Western Exploration Limited (ASX:GTE) is pleased to advise that it has secured funding from the Western Australian Government for the upcoming diamond drilling program at its giant Oval and Oval South Copper-Gold targets in Western Australia. The funding will be provided under the Government's Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS).
The giant Oval and Oval South Copper-Gold targets are within the Company's Yerrida North Project, located on the northern and western portions of the Yerrida Basin, approximately 800km north-east of Perth and adjacent to the DeGrussa and Monty Copper-Gold Volcanic Hosted Massive Sulphide deposits (VHMS), shown in Figure 1*.
Great Western will receive funding for up to 50 per cent of the drilling costs (capped at $113,000) and up to $5,000 towards drilling rig mobilisation costs.
The Company believes the EIS co-funding is a strong endorsement of the prospectivity of Oval and Oval South and appreciates the support from the Western Australian Government for the Company's exploration programme.
Rio Tinto & Sandfire's Work
The Oval and Oval South Targets were originally defined by Rio Tinto Tempest airborne EM survey in the late 1990s. Rio Tinto drill-tested the Oval target, drilling a hole to a depth of 232m and terminating the hole within black shale with disseminated pyrite, considered at the time to be the source of the conductor (GTE ASX Announcement 4 October 2023).
In 2010 a VTEM survey was completed by Great Western over an area that encompassed both Oval and Oval South. This geophysical method can penetrate deeper into highly conductive terrains such as shales at this location than the Tempest technique utilised by Rio Tinto. The VTEM data defined the conductor at a depth of 300m, below the shale surface where OVR001 was terminated (Figure 2*); hole OVR001 did not intersect the conductor.
Further definition of the Oval and Oval South targets was completed by a joint venture between Great Western and Sandfire (ASX:SFR), where Sandfire spent $4.5M on exploration on the project from 2017 before withdrawing (GTE ASX Announcement 17 August 2023). Great Western assumed 100% ownership of the Yerrida North Project, with all associated exploration data compiled and completed by Sandfire during the joint venture.
Sandfire completed an Airborne Gravity Gradiometry (AGG) in 2022, with the AGG survey defining discrete gravity highs at Oval and Oval South, that overlayed near perfectly with the VTEM anomalies (Figure 3*). The coincident gravity and electro-magnetic anomalies were interpreted as potential buried bodies of metal rich sulphide mineralisation (GTE ASX Announcement 4 October 2023).
The geophysical signatures are interpreted by Great Western as sharing similarities with the colossal intrusive related copper-gold Winu ((2.88Mt Copper - 7.88Moz Gold, Rio Tinto 2023) and Haverion (2.9Moz Gold - 140Kt Copper, Newcrest 2023).
Further Interpretation Defines "Growth Fault"
Further interpretation of geophysical data (gravity and magnetics) by Great Western defined a north-east trending feature (GTE ASX Announcement 18 December 2023). The Company's independent interpretation was found to align perfectly with Geological Survey Western Australia's (GSWA) major basin defining "growth fault" of the Yerrida Basin (Figure 1*) interpretation completed in 2000, undertaken without the extensive geophysical dataset Great Western now has. According to the GSWA in its report on the Yerrida Basin, this fault played a crucial role in development of the Basin (Pirajno and Adamides, 2000).
The Yerrida Basin Growth Fault is a long-lived structure, likely to have penetrated Archean Basement below the Yerrida Basin. Crucially for Oval and Oval South, this feature intersects the crustal scale mantle tapping Ida Fault (Figure 1*). The Company interprets these two faults in conjunction provided the plumbing to focus metal-rich fluids from the mantle in favourable trap sites and Yerrida Basin stratigraphy (shales, carbonates, and siltstones).
This identification of the Yerrida Basin growth fault significantly increases the potential for a giant Winu-Haverion style intrusive related copper-gold discovery to be made.
Oval & Oval South's Impressive Key Ingredients
Discovery of giant deposits often involve the identification of at least three key ingredients that may define a potential major mineralisation system. The interpretation of the Yerrida Basin Growth Fault adds to the very significant key ingredients of Oval and Oval South already identified, which greatly enhances the discovery of a giant Winu-style intrusive related copper-gold system, which now include:
- Co-incident gravity and electro-magnetic anomalies - zones of dense rocks that are conductive interpreted to represent obscured metal rich sulphide mineralisation;
- Co-incident magnetic anomalism potentially representing a deep intrusive providing mineralised fluids and heat source to drive a mineralised system;
- Proximity to the crustal scale Ida Fault, a proven fertile conduit for metal rich mantle fluids;
- Intersection of the Ida Fault by a basin defining "growth structure", allow mineralised fluids to ascend and focus within suitable trap site/stratigraphy;
- Favourable Yerrida Basin stratigraphy of the Johnson Cairn Formation for mineralised fluids to deposit coppergold (shales, dolomites, siltstones); and
- Position of both Oval and Oval South within an east-west intrusive corridor, a potential zone of weakened crust, which in conjunction with the Ida Fault and GSWA growth Fault, makes an ideal trap site for metal accumulation.
Great Western interprets that Oval and Oval South's coincident geophysics anomalism, location on a major crustal mantle tapping fault, newly interpreted intersection with a basin defining growth fault, and within favourable stratigraphy creates the potential for a colossal discovery to be made.
*To view tables and figures, please visit:
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