- St George kicks off multi-faceted exploration at Woolgangie
- Woolgangie is a rare greenfields opportunity in a historically fertile mineral field
- The project is being worked over with modern exploration methods to fully investigate its potential
St George’s first ever drill program at the underexplored Woolgangie in WA’s Eastern Goldfields will hit targets prospective for lithium, rare earths and copper.
St George (ASX:SGQ) acquired the Woolgangie project in February this year, expanding its critical metals portfolio in the highly prospective Tier 1 jurisdiction of the Eastern Goldfields.
Woolgangie’s tenure comprises a dominant landholding of 3,350km2 in the Coolgardie Mineral Field and takes in +90km of the Ida Fault – a major crustal boundary which controls multiple major mineral deposits including Delta Lithium’s (ASX:DLI) 12.7Mt Mt Ida project and Liontown Resources’ (ASX:LTR) $895mn Kathleen Valley mine, the latter set to come online next year.
While a pipeline of high priority targets has already been identified, SGQ says its initial focus will remain on three strategic areas – the Central Tenements, the Western Tenements and the Eastern Tenements.
The latter of which is in an established region that hosts Mineral Resources’ (ASX:MIN) Mt Marion mine and the Pioneer Dome deposit being acquired by Develop (ASX:DVP).
‘Pipeline of value creating opportunities’
SGQ executive chairman John Prineas says a multifaceted field work program has kicked off, comprising aircore drilling, an airborne magnetic survey, a ground based electromagnetic survey and soil surveys to explore for economic mineralisation of lithium, rare earths and copper.
“Historical drilling has revealed thick zones of copper and rare earths mineralisation that present as attractive prospects and warrant follow-up work,” Prineas says.
“In addition, extensive pegmatite trends at the project have yet to be systematically explored for lithium.
“Woolgangie is an example of how St George is building out our portfolio of highly prospective exploration assets to deliver a pipeline of value-creating opportunities for shareholders.”
Lithium, rare earths and copper prospectivity
On the lithium front, field mapping, soil surveys and rock chip sampling works are under way on a priority exploration target which covers an area of 25km where multiple pegmatites have been identified across the project tenure.
The Western Tenements cover ground with a geological setting interpreted to be favourable for REE mineralisation.
Given the positive historical results in the area, such as 84m at 470ppm cerianite, lanthanite, and yttriaite from 96m and 24m at 649ppm cerianite, lanthanite, and yttriaite from 8m, SGQ believes the acquisition presents a ‘first-mover’ strategy for REE in the region.
Meanwhile, a new ground MLEM survey will be completed on the Central tenements, where historical drilling by Mincor uncovered thick intervals of copper sulphides in several drill holes including 50m at 0.20% Cu and 2.1 g/t Ag from 80m and 58m at 0.054% Cu and 0.9g/t Ag from 140m.
Drill program incoming
A drill program will be scheduled to further test these EM conductors following a review of the new survey data.
St George’s maiden drill program at Woolgangie comprises approximately 60 planned aircore drill holes for ~ 2,500m of drilling.
Drilling is scheduled to reach completion next week with assay results expected within 4-6 weeks from when samples are submitted to the laboratory.
In parallel to Woolgangie, Prineas says the company is planning the next phase of lithium exploration at the Mt Alexander project as well as its maiden field programmes for the lithium prospective tenements recently acquired through subsidiary Lithium Star Pty Limited.
“We will be announcing more about these field programs soon,” he says.
This article was developed in collaboration with St George Mining, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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