Thomson has secured a $100,000 cash grant from the Queensland government to help fund a 3,000km high-resolution airborne magnetic survey west of its Chillagoe gold project.

The survey will be flown over an area that is not currently covered by high-resolution magnetics, unlike areas closer to Chillagoe to the southeast, where remodelling and surface soil testing of several magnetic anomalies was carried out in 2020.

Thomson Resources’ (ASX:TMZ) project comprises six exploration permits – one of which is still under application – that cover 594sqkm near the Mungana, Red Dome, King Vol and Tartana mining operations.

Principal targets in the area are intrusion-related gold deposits that are typically associated with felsic Carboniferous breccia pipe and intrusive complexes.

Several such bodies are known and display features typical of Mungana and Red Dome, which are replacement skarn deposits where late Carboniferous intrusions and breccias are hosted by dominantly limestone host rocks.

These deposits have great vertical extent – with Red Dome having proved depth continuity to more than 1,000m – and are typically close to surface under weathering and recent alluvial or transported sediments.

Chillagoe gold project

The new survey will cover several prospects with outstanding surface geochemical results, enhancing the targets to be drilled at these anomalies.

Lavarock hosts shallow pits that were historically worked for copper over a 1.5km north-south lode.

Previous work by the company identified a 1km long magnetic anomaly in the southern part of the area while rock chip sampling of a shallow old pit with visible copper mineralisation returned an assay of 16 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 64g/t silver, 20% copper and 0.4% tungsten.

Gold anomalies were also noted on all four lines of auger sampling that took place in 2020.

The Borderline prospect features a north-south, 650m long ferruginous and sheared “lode” with multiple anomalous rock chips.

Historical trenching returned results such as 28.6g/t gold and 713g/t silver that revealed a zone of intense quartz-sericite hydrothermal alteration.

While Thomsons’ soil sampling highlighted two separate, parallel, gold anomalies, the best results came from its work on the eastern lode.

Salt Creek contains a line of old shallow pits with two shafts at either end spread out over a 200m long iron and quartz rich altered lode zone in schist.

Of the 17 historical rock chips collected in 1985, nine returned results of more than 0.8g/t gold while 11 hits showed more than 1% copper. Peak results were up to 5.7g/t gold and 24.3% copper.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Thomson 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.