the exploration tenement basically surrounds this one. with a heap of drilling to the north east tenements.
"In the four months to July 2003, a 475 hole (28,300 metre) RAB drilling programme to further assess the central 2 km of the known Tough Go mineralised area and the strike extensions of known mineralisation on the Turn-of-the-Tide mineralised line was completed"
Although Gold Fields defined three sub-parallel, largely continuous 5-50 metres wide and up to 1,200 metres long, low-grade mineralised zones with potential to host a number of steeply plunging high grade shoots. They withdrew from the JV, effective 1 November 2003, because of the perceived limited size of the targets. No interest was earned. St Barbara will now look at other options for advancing Tough Go, and also the 3 km plus long Reedys mineralised line, which has produced more than 500,000 ounces of gold (including 820,000 tonnes at an average grade of 12 g/t from underground). There has been very limited drill-testing to depths of more than 200 metres. Unclosed gold intercepts including 3 metres at 17.92 g/t, 4 metres at 12.99 g/t, 12 metres at 10.8 g/t and 20 metres at 3.85 g/t require further evaluation"
"Geology and Mineralisation Within the Reedy project area, the greenstone stratigraphy is traversed by three large strike-parallel, northeast to north-northeast trending, gold mineralised shear zones which collectively form part of the regionally significant Mt Magnet-Meekatharra shear zone (Figure 6.1). Locally, these are referred to as the Reedy, Turn of the Tide and Tough Go shear zones. Gold mineralisation occurs as localised strike parallel and sub-parallel sulphide lodes along these main shear zones and adjacent sub-ordinate structures"
Turn of the Tide shear zone Gold mineralisation along the Turn of the Tide shear zone is associated with quartz veining hosted by deeply weathered, sheared felsic volcanic rocks at the former Turn of the Tide Main, Culculli and Culculli North mines, and within sheared mafic, ultramafic schists and BIF-mafic contacts at the Thompsons mine. Little is known of the mineralisation, due to the depth and intensity of oxidation and the shallow extent of previous drilling and mining.
Exploration Potential From Snowden’s assessment of the exploration data it is evident that the Reedy project has been subject to detailed evaluation in the past, but there are significant areas that remain lightly explored principally associated with subordinate structures to the Reedy, Turn of Tide and Tough Go shears. Several prospective areas are apparent where these shear structures are concealed under significant cover. In particular, the 20 km strike extent of the Reedy shear zone between South Emu and the project area’s southern boundary is considered a priority exploration target, as there has been limited drilling in this area to depths greater than 60 m
Summary of exploration results Most of the previous exploration completed within the Reedy project targeted the gold potential of the Reedy, Turn of the Tide and Tough Go shears, with many gold deposits and numerous prospects found as a result. A total of fourteen deposits have since been mined as open pits, with four of these also having significant underground gold production. Between 2000 and 2003, St Barbara and its joint venture partners completed a number of reconnaissance RAB and RC drilling programmes largely focussed on the follow-up evaluation of previously defined geochemical anomalies. Whilst these programmes intersected a number of narrow zones of low-grade (1-3 g/t Au) gold mineralisation at shallow depths, the continuity and extent of the mineralisation was considered insufficient to warrant further investigation. More recent exploration within the Reedy project was focussed on the Jack Ryan and Rand areas. In August 2004 St Barbara estimated a resource for Jack Ryan and completed an open pit optimisation study. This study concluded the deposit was marginal. Further drilling by St Barbara at Jack Ryan from late 2004 to early 2005 was met with limited success. However, at Rand and North Rand St Barbara reported a number of significant intersections at depths of 300 m below the base of the former Rand and North Rand open pits. Significant results included 46 m grading 2.66 g/t Au (including 6 m at 11.5 g/t Au) from a downhole depth of 232 m in hole RDRCD005 and 42.6 m at 2.5 g/t Au from a downhole depth of 267 m and 4 m grading 8.5 g/t Au from a downhole depth of 300 m in hole RDRCD013. A south-plunging high-grade shoot extending from North Rand was identified, with further drilling focussed on establishing a resource down to a vertical depth of 250 m. The pits at Rand and North Rand were completed to depths of 120 m and 80 m below surface respectively
worth a read IMV - looks like st barbara looked further north and left the turn of the tide (aka crackerjack fairly alone at the time), Looks like deeper minerilisation but potential part on that longer shear zone.
enticing.
SF2TH
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