Mark Creasy, the major shareholder in Sirius and co-owner of the Nova discovery, first hit the headlines in 1994 when he pocketed a tax-free $130 million from the sale of his Bronzewing gold discovery.
He has been a total believer in the potential of the Fraser Range to deliver another big strike since first walking across the area in 1979 – not in search of minerals, but hunting bits of the US satellite, Skylab, which had crashed to earth in the area.
As with his conventional prospecting, the British-educated mining engineer struck in lucky, finding several bits of space junk, only to discover there was no market for burned-out oxygen bottles – one of which became a talking point in his home office.
Ever since that walk across the Fraser Range almost 33 years ago, Creasy has been telling anyone who would listen that it will one day be the centre of a world-class mining industry – once the science is developed to look beneath a thick surface covering of sand which has deterred most other explorers.
The required science is slowly arriving, with electro-magnetic tools used to “read” deeply-buried rocks, and help chose the location for the drill rigs. Similar geophysical tool have proved valuable in extending the life of nickel mines at Kambalda because of their ability to “see” rock structures well ahead of the underground mining crews.
What Creasy theorised the best part of 30 years ago, that the Fraser Range would prove to be richly-mineralised because it has been created by a clash of geological structures which can provide the conditions to form orebodies, is now being proved by electro-magnetics, surface chemical sampling and the ultimate explorer’s tool, drilling.
Nova is the first step in proving Creasy’s theory.
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