G O L D W W W . H I G H G R A D E . N E T Oakland boss? 20-year itch Kate Haycock, 26 May 2011 JUNIOR explorer Oakland Resources? very first drilling campaign at its Boorowa project in New South Wales has provided an early indication the company?s plan to revisit historical lead-zinc deposits in search of gold could be a winner. The company listed late last year, raising a modest $A3 million to fund its exploration efforts in NSW targeting the Silurian rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt. Mark Arundell has returned to Spion Kop at Boorawa two decades after sampling the ground for a past employer. Managing director Mark Arundell, who?s previous roles included exploration work at Northparkes and Lake Cowal in NSW, said this week the company was using a Canadian model of volcanic-hosted massive sulphide lead zinc deposits which were also gold-rich. ?This particular model that we?re applying in NSW is to target rocks where historically people have looked for lead-zinc. The Canadians have found these deposits can have a copper or gold rich zone beneath them,? he said. And in the last round of exploration in the region in the 1970s gold was worth $US30 an ounce and a lot more expensive to analyse for, meaning that the precious metal was simply not on the agenda for previous explorers, Arundell said. The company?s two main projects are Boorowa near Yass, which includes the Spion Kop prospect, and the Mullions Range area north of Orange. Arundell?s history in the region goes back more than 20 years. In 1989 he was working for another company and took a sample from an old lead-zinc mine which is now the Skion Kop project. Assays returned grades of some 20% lead-zinc, 3% copper, 200 grams per tonne silver and 10 grams of gold but Arundell was unable to follow this up before now. ?That just stuck with me for 20 years and Oakland is giving me the opportunity to do something about that,? he said. The junior?s first drilling campaign at Spion Kop has already turned up some evidence that its exploration model could be a winner, with a peak intersection of 22m at 1.09gpt gold from 36m including 6m at 3.11gpt gold returned from first pass RC drilling. ?I was hoping for a result of say, 20m at 0.1gpt gold, I would have considered that an anomalous result,? Arundell said. ?We?re doing shallow drilling and we?re not penetrating very far into the bedrock, so to get something an order of magnitude better than I expected was very encouraging. It made me feel good about what we?re doing ? we?re not complete idiots after all!? Arundell said Spion Kop appeared to be hosted in the same belt of rocks as Alkane Resources and Newmont Gold?s vast, low-grade McPhillamy?s gold deposit. ?In terms of prospectivity I see this belt as being hugely prospective and the gold potential has been ignored, but you?d have to view McPhillamy?s as a game changer ? it?s a multi-million ounce gold deposit, and the only recent discovery of the last 10 years which is bigger than it is Tropicana,? he said. Other deposits in the region underscoring its prospectivity include Tri Origin Minerals? Lewis Ponds and Woodlawn projects, both brownfields zinc-lead operations Tri Origin is attempting to revive. ?Something like Lewis Ponds which has basically been sold as a lead-zinc deposit also has quite a bit of gold in it, some 300,000oz,? Arundell said. The model may be promising but the company?s bank balance is slender, however, Arundell said the company was being run on the smell of an oil-rag, with low admin costs, and should be funded for the next two years. ?We can put over a million into the ground each year ? of course if we get onto something major that will need environmental studies we?d have a greater burn rate but for now we?ve got enough money to do what we need to do,? he said. This article was first published in www.highgrade.net. It must not be reproduced without permission of the company.
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