Godolphin’s new target could expand Lewis Ponds to the north

• Target 1 identified 1000m north of Lewis Ponds deposit using reprocessed 1996 survey data
• New target shows similar geophysical signature to existing gold, silver and base metals deposit
• IP survey and drilling planned to test potential northern extension

Special Report: Godolphin Resources’ geophysical surveying has identified a target along strike of the Lewis Ponds deposit in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt that highlights potential to extend mineralisation to the north.

Target 1 at the gold, silver and base metals project is an early to mid-time fixed loop ground electromagnetic (FLEM) response positioned within a negative polarity versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) anomaly.

This is similar to the electrical geophysical response of the existing Lewis Ponds deposit and is further supported by an emerging induced polarisation chargeability anomaly along strike as well as open file historical grab samples of up to 0.1% zinc that suggest sulphide mineralisation might be proximal to the FLEM response.

Godolphin Resources (ASX:GRL) notes that Target 1 demonstrates strong potential for additional mineralisation, reinforcing exploration upside and large-scale opportunity at the project east of Orange.

“The identification of Target 1 highlights considerable success in our initiatives in reprocessing the historical SiroTEM ground electromagnetic data at the Lewis Ponds Project,” managing director Jeneta Owens said.

“Pleasingly, the new geophysical target is directly along strike from the main deposit, highlighting another significant exploration opportunity for Godolphin.”

She added that with previous work identifying potential strike extension targets to the south of the existing Lewis Ponds resource, the discovery of Target 1 to the north opened up another area of potentially significant expansion.

“This result is further supported by historical rock chip samples that our geologists obtained from publicly available information and supported by our own field observations, which indicate the potential for additional sulphide mineralisation in close proximity to the existing resource,” Owens noted.

“Delineating Target 1 has demonstrated the value of leveraging modern geophysical processing techniques on historical datasets and highlights the ongoing prospectivity of the Lewis Ponds corridor.”

Lewis Ponds project

The ~148km2 Lewis Ponds project sits within the world-class Lachlan Fold Belt of NSW and is envisioned as both an open pit and underground operation.

Open pit resources stand at 2.88Mt at 0.52g/t gold, 41.22g/t silver, 1.52% zinc, 0.59% lead and 0.12% copper while the larger and higher grade underground resources comes in at 6.95Mt at 1.89g/t Au, 76.48/t Ag, 2.85% Zn, 1.71% Pb and 0.17% Cu

The deposit and parts of the broader exploration corridor were covered with a FLEM survey in 1996 to detect conductors within the subsurface that potentially map accumulations of metals such as lead-zinc-pyrite.

While the survey data was reviewed at the time, electrical geophysical methods were in their infancy in the late 1990s, meaning the processing of the data and subsequent interpretation was considered primitive in comparison to present day.

This led GRL to engage electrical geophysics consultant Mitre Geophysics to reprocess and interpret the data.

Major findings of this work demonstrate the data maps the deposit mineralisation as a series of subtle, early to mid-time ground electromagnetic conductors.

More from GRL: Diving into Lewis Ponds with Godolphin Resources

Additionally, the Lewis Ponds deposit has a developed electrical geophysical response that is best defined by:

• Subtle early to mid-time FLEM response, with model conductor plates ranging between 25S and 120S for the FLEM and between 16S and 150S in the downhole electromagnetic surveys
• A negative polarity helicopter-borne airborne EM response VTEM, which can be caused by clays or fine disseminated sulphides; and
• >40mV/V IP chargeability anomaly that directly maps the orebody mineralisation and disseminated sulphide halo.

This provides an important electrical geophysical signature which can inform future exploration with Target 1 being an emerging signature identified 1000m north along strike of the deposit.

Given the significance of Target 1, the area will be screened with a discrete pole-dipole IP survey following the completion of the current IP survey in the southeast of Lewis Ponds.

Follow up drilling will be planned subject to IP results.

This article was developed in collaboration with Godolphin Resources, 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.