AUSTRALIAN explorer and developer Korab Resources has collated and interpreted extensive historical exploration data for its wholly-owned Ashburton Downs project, with spectacular results.
The 380 square kilometre Ashburton Downs project – comprising the North Mount Elephant, Green Elephant, East Elephant and Mount Elephant prospects – lies 25km south of Paraburdoo and 5km west of the Mt Olympus gold mine.
Korab supplemented the review with a number of site visits and field surveys to verify aspects of the historical data.
The company said the setting and mineralisation style of Green Elephant shown in this data highlighted its potential as one of Australia’s most exciting copper prospects. It contains a significant structure covering an area of about 2sqkm, including some 970,000sqm of visible copper mineralisation, and the company noted multiple assays grading more than 5 per cent copper in four 10m trenches.
Copper assays in rock chip samples at Mount Elephant graded up to 45 per cent, with multiple assays grading between 2 and 19 per cent. North Mount Elephant rock chip samples displayed copper values of more than 20 per cent and gold grades exceeding 10 grams per tonne. Korab said the relative remoteness of the Ashburton Downs project area, coupled with the lack of modern exploration tools such as helicopter-borne versatile time domain electro-magnetic (VTEM) surveys and mobile metal ions (MMI) sampling to assist in targeting, meant previous explorers failed to follow through with significant drilling programs.
The company intends to undertake an MMI sampling program accompanied by a VTEM survey designed to determine discreet drilling targets. These will be followed by a preliminary drilling program expected to take about three months to complete, subject to flooding, with results anticipated in the third quarter 2012.
In early May the company announced extremely encouraging high-grade results from diamond drilling at its Melrose gold project in the Eastern Goldfields of WA. Korab received the first batch of assays from two diamond drill holes there, with best intercepts so far including 16.4 grams per tonne of gold over 1m from 52m and 13.05g/t of gold over 1.7m from 32.7m.
The Melrose project – which covers the Boundary, Bungarra and Stirling deposits – hosts a JORC resource of 340,000oz of gold in three deposits in close proximity. Metallurgical and leach testing will follow the final assays.
Results from these tests will help the company determine if the Bungarra and Boundary deposits can be developed as a simple bulk mining and heap leaching operation. The full test program will take up to three month to complete.
Korab is an Australian mining company that operates several development projects both in domestically and overseas, as well as several exploration projects in WA and the Northern Territory.
By Reuben Adams
