t seems the gold rush has well and truly moved to the Pilbara....

t seems the gold rush has well and truly moved to the Pilbara.
Hot on the heels of De Grey Mining’s revelation yesterday that it had uncovered an outcropping conglomerate that included 91 nuggets at its Loudens Patch prospect, Venturex Resources said today it will review the potential of its adjoining Whim Creek tenement package.
“In light of the results from the De Grey tenement, Venturex intends to send its geological team to inspect the area and undertake sampling if warranted,” executive director Anthony Reilly said.
“The only known gold mineralisation in the area is the Louden Patch alluvial mine. The workings consist of scrapings and metal detecting on or close to the contact between the Louden Basalt and Mallina Formation sediments.”
While happy to get a few boots on the ground, Venturex said its principal focus would remain on pushing forward with the Sulphur Springs zinc-copper project to a development decision.
“Without detracting from these activities, the company will continue to advance the existing VMS targets defined within the Whim Creek project area while also further evaluating the newly identified gold targets as part of upcoming work programmes,” Mr Reilly said.
De Grey’s find has been compared to South Africa’s legendary Witwatersrand deposits. Its share soared 150 per cent yesterday after reports of the watermelon seed-shaped nuggets.
The stock was back in a trading halt today as it pursues a capital raising, with an announcement expected by Monday.
The target size at the base of Mt Roe Basalt was 1.5km long in strike, 400m wide and up to 10m thick.
Operations manager Andy Beckwith said yesterday it was an important new discovery for De Grey, comparing the development to the jointly held Pilbara finds of Novo Resources and Artemis Resources
“Loudens Patch now ranks with Comet Well, Purdy’s Reward and the Beatons Creek for conglomerate-hosted gold potential,” he said.
“We are essentially now only one step behind Novo and Artemis in terms of defining bedrock-hosted conglomerate gold mineralisation. Any new grade resource, large or small, will provide a tremendous economic advantage to our planned Pilbara gold development based on our existing one million-ounce of gold resources.”