As Black Cat draws closer to a decision to restart mining at its high-grade Paulsens gold mine, the opportunity for new gold and copper finds within the region is building which could further extend its producing life.

A high resolution photogrammetry survey and photo geology interpretation completed over the project has identified multiple quartz veins for follow-up while reprocessing of historical geophysical data has refined and complemented regional targeting studies.

And that’s not all, Black Cat Syndicate (ASX:BC8) is also continuing reconnaissance surface rock chip sampling to further define copper-silver-gold anomalies and drill targets.

Data from these programs will be integrated into a comprehensive regional targeting database to inform the new geology model and support regional drilling from the middle of this year.

“We are excited by the regional exploration potential at Paulsens. The project contains several crustal scale faults which provide deep plumbing for mineralising fluids,” managing director Gareth Solly said.

“Strong copper and gold anomalism is common and historical mining is not isolated to the main Paulsens operation with examples of workings present throughout the project area.

“Paulsens is already one of the highest-grade underground gold deposits in Australia and we have numerous copper, gold and silver targets that have the potential to host additional mineralised bodies. Our early exploration planning is prioritising targets for drilling later in 2023.”

Regional exploration

The company’s recent regional exploration has focused on a prospective 7.5km long section of the copper-silver-gold section of the Paulsens Structural Corridor, which also hosts the existing Paulsens underground mine and the Belvedere, Eagles’ Lair, Paulsens East and Tombstone prospects.

Belvedere, located about 6km from the processing facility, was the subject of small-scale underground gold production prior to World War 2 and currently has a shallow, open pit Resource of 30,000oz at 3.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold that remains open at depth and along strike with only limited historical drilling.

Additionally, shear hosted quartz veins with ultra-high grades of up to 47.3g/t gold and 158g/t silver outcrop at surface along 2.5km strike length from Belvedere to Eagles’ Lair while several historical shafts have been identified during field reconnaissance with most of the strike length remaining undrilled.

Black Cat notes that this fault zone is also prospective for copper mineralisation, with historical surface samples returning up to 3.52% copper and that Belvedere presents as a significant opportunity to find “another Paulsens” with a its 2.5km long strike length, a high-grade open pit resource from only limited shallow drilling and multi-metal potential.

Tombstone is a copper-silver-gold prospect located 2km southeast of Belvedere and 8km from the processing facility and was historically mined on a small scale.

Despite having outcropping copper oxide mineralisation that has returned rock chip grades up to 12.5%, the prospect has seen minimal modern exploration and limited reverse circulation drilling.

Regional exploration has also identified a 6km trend of soil and rock chip copper-silver-gold anomalism between the Eagle’s Lair and Paulsens East prospects which has not been systematically drilled.

This recent work indicates that mineralisation is hosted in northeast-trending, steeply dipping quartz-oxide veins, with malachite (a copper-bearing ore) observed in several veins.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Black Cat Syndicate, 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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