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RECENTLY appointed Goldsearch exploration manager Heath Hellewell is excited about the company's future prospects as it prepares to embark on a widespread drilling program. By Wally Graham - RESOURCESTOCKS*



Goldsearch's project location map

A geologist with over 14 years experience in gold, base metals and diamond exploration in Australia and overseas, Heath Hellewell was with Independence Group – a joint venture exploration partner with Goldsearch in its Musgrove Block project – before making the move to Goldsearch in July.

Hellewell said as the company's strategic program opened up to him, he had been pleasantly surprised by the projects it was developing all around the country.

"These are projects that Goldsearch has had for a while and have been working through the processes of getting tenements granted," he said.

"They are not things that we've just gone and pegged.

"We're ready to push the button to begin a number of drill programs on a number of projects."

Hellewell could barely contain his enthusiasm as he began rolling the projects out one by one.

The first of the projects Hellewell appeared most excited about is the Mary Kathleen uranium project in the Mt Isa Inlier in north Queensland, where Goldsearch (earning 75%) is exploring for uranium deposits in a JV with Central West Gold, which has a 25% interest.

Located to the north and south of the old Mary Kathleen township and historical Mary Kathleen uranium mine, the project is spread across two tenements that cover an area of approximately 243 square kilometres.

Goldsearch's nearby 95%-owned Duck Creek project brings the total tenement holding in the Cloncurry-Mt Isa region to 375sq.km.

When the Mary Kathleen mine was previously worked between 1958 and 1963 and then from 1976 to 1982, production was approximately 18 million pounds uranium-in-concentrate over the total life of the mine.

The Mary Kathleen tenements held by Goldsearch and Central West Gold cover a significant area of prospective metamorphosed calcareous sediments of Corella Formation rocks situated towards the Burstall Granite, an upper plate granite with elevated uranium levels.

It is the Corella Formation rocks that host the uranium mineralisation.

The tenements are also considered to be prospective for iron oxide copper-gold (+/- uranium) similar to Ernest Henry and Olympic Dam and other oxide copper mineralisation associated with other known occurrences within the tenement itself.

Reconnaissance geological mapping and prospecting carried out at Mary Kathleen have enabled Goldsearch to identify three priority targets.

The first of these targets to gain attention is the Elaine Dorothy prospect located just 6km south of the Mary Kathleen uranium mine. A small number of drill holes completed at Elaine Dorothy by previous explorers had identified significant uranium mineralisation that, at the time, was recognised to be similar to the Mary Kathleen deposit with an average grade of 0.28% uranium.

More recent work carried out at Elaine Dorothy has given Goldsearch a greater understanding of the structural and geological controls of the previously identified uranium mineralisation.

"This is actually an old prospect that was identified by Mary Kathleen Uranium in the 70s when the Mary Kathleen uranium mine was operating," Hellewell said.

"We have defined three discreet but very high scintillometer anomalies we think confirms its potential.

"These anomalies will be drilled during November and results should be available in December."

THE current program saw continued gamma ray spectrometer sampling and a detailed mapping program carried out at the Elaine Dorothy prospect. The spectrometer survey highlighted areas of high readings suggesting uranium concentrations of up to 3000 parts per million over narrow zones in three separate areas.



Goldsearch's project location map

Each of these zones, associated with a sequence of highly altered calcareous metasediments of the Corella Formation, showed an individual strike rate of approximately 200m. The prospect is located on the same structural feature as the Mary Kathleen Mine.

McGregor (Anomaly M) and Mount Dorothy are two other target sites at Mary Kathleen that have also returned promising test results.

Rock chip samples were collected from a large scintillometer anomaly extending for at least 900m. These returned readings of up to 400 counts in a regional background of 30 counts from iron stone outcrops within carbonaceous rocks at McGregor and also showed results up to 490ppm uranium, 1.75% copper, 114ppm molybdenum and 1860ppm zinc.

Similar testing at Mount Dorothy has proven to be just as encouraging for Goldsearch with scintillometer sampling indicating strong anomalies of up 300 counts in a background of 90 counts over an approximate strike length of 750m.

Hellewell's eyes widened when he spoke of the Musgrave Block project in South Australia where Goldsearch is working in JV with his former company.

"The Goldsearch-Independence Group joint venture has been approached by a number of large international mining companies who are eager in taking an interest in those properties," he said.

"At the moment we are considering a number of offers."

Independence Group currently operates the 17,000sq.km tenement area that sits in the South Australian portion of the Musgrave Block and is spending $2 million to earn a 51% interest in the project. Most of the tenements are in the freehold Pitjantjatjara Lands, which have not been explored since the early 1970s.

"Recently, significant progress has been made towards having our four highest priority tenements in the Musgrave area of South Australia granted. Basically, the Goldsearch tenements are at the top of the list to be the next granted and the process towards this has commenced," Hellewell said confidently.

It's difficult to ascertain which particular Goldsearch project Hellewell is most excited about. The conversation quickly moves from one project to another and before I can finish taking notes on the Musgrave Block, we are discussing the Mount Wellington project in Victoria.

"This is one of the projects I've really been impressed with since joining Goldsearch," Hellewell beamed.

Located in eastern Victoria, the Mount Wellington project contains two Cambrian 'greenstone' belts principally composed of volcanics and sediments deposited in an island arc.

The project covers some small Cambrian outcrops or windows in central eastern Victoria where Goldsearch has seen a number of encouraging results from previous explorers.

"We have interpreted, and other people have interpreted, the rocks as being equivalent to the Mt Read volcanic rocks of western Tasmania and they are therefore highly prospective for a number of styles of gold and base mineral mineralisation," Hellewell said.

"We have been compiling all of the previous exploration data and information left by the previous explorers in the project area."

There are two main projects at the Mount Wellington project that have been drilled, Hill 800 and Rhyolite Creek.

Gossans extend at Hill 800 for 300m along strike in a structurally complex zone. Drilling has produced results of 33m at 4.3 grams per tonne gold from surface, 13m at 10.88gpt gold from surface, 25m at 4.72gpt gold from surface, 18m at 5.06gpt gold from 86m, 21m at 4.45gpt gold from 75m, 32.2m at 4.28gpt from surface.

Hellewell appeared pleased as he described these as "very attractive results".

Goldsearch anticipates that tenements at Hill 800 prospect will be granted within the next four to six months and sees it as an obvious place to begin drilling mid-way through next year.

"There are numerous other geophysical and geochemical targets we have identified, most of which have not been drilled," Hellewell added.

"So we are going through and prioritising all of those with a view to further geophysical and/or geochemical testing to bring them up to drill target status.

"You will probably see significant commitment to that project over the next year or two."

Pervasive agrillic alterations identified in a number of areas at Rhyolite Hill have also given Goldsearch reason to smile. Previous drilling at this prospect has returned results of 12.6m at 1gpt gold from 6m and 32m at 27.25gpt silver from 5m.

"This is also an obvious target for drilling now, as these results are open in basically all directions," Hellewell said.

"The tenement for that prospect has already been granted, so hopefully we will be drilling there early in the new year."

At Sandy Creek, also in eastern Victoria, drilling will commence later this month to test a number of targets associated with some small but very high-grade gold mines worked in the early 1900s.

* This report, first published in the November 2006 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Goldsearch