Greatland Gold PLC has announced the grant of a new Exploration Licence E52/4342 (Woodlands) covering 134km2 as the inaugural tenement in the Mt Egerton Project (Mt Egerton). The project is located in the Gascoyne region, 230km north of the Meekatharra gold camp. The Woodlands tenement includes a 25km strike length in a structurally complex geological setting, which is potentially a very favorable mineralization trap site. The region is significantly under-explored, with limited drilling and soil sampling, none of which was assayed for gold.
The company's Managing Director, Shaun Day, expressed excitement about the grant, stating, "We are delighted by the grant of the Woodlands tenement at our new Mt Egerton gold-copper project, which further enhances our excellent exploration portfolio with a new front in a highly prospective region of Western Australia." Greatland Gold aims to compile and interpret available data to plan systematic, targeted exploration on the ground in the near future.
The Mt Egerton Project lies within an east-west trending wedge of folded Proterozoic metasediments, which is interpreted as a likely conduit region for metals from the mantle, making it a highly prospective setting for the discovery of gold and base metals deposits. The geological setting within the Woodlands tenement is dominated by west-north-west trending isoclinal folding, creating domal anticline and syncline pairs, including reactive calcareous units within the Devil Creek, Ullawarra, Irregully, and Discovery formations, which can act as chemical traps for mineralization.
Historically, the Woodlands tenement is underexplored, with only a single line of 6 reverse circulation (RC) drillholes completed by Western Mining Corporation in 1993. The cover depth in drilling is inferred to be approximately 60 meters, increasing to approximately 100 meters in faulted ground. Historical surface sampling programs included 559 samples along the North and East parts of the tenement, with weak copper anomalism associated with particular lithological units.
The exploration model targeting gold and copper mineralization at Woodlands is based on the movement on a regional scale fault causing partial melting of the mantle at depth. These hot metal-rich fluids migrate to the surface, utilizing second-order faults, and impermeable units in anticlines act like an overturned bowl trapping the rising fluid and pooling it beneath them. Greatland Gold sees the Mt Egerton Project as a further opportunity to put their advanced exploration techniques to work in an under-explored region in pursuit of tier-one gold and copper deposits.