Cumnock EL 6417

EL 6417 of 249 square kilometres extends from west of Molong to just south of Wellington in fairly rugged grazing country. The Mitchell Highway is adjacent to the EL and a number of other sealed and gravel roads provide access. Cumnock was acquired to test a range of rock units of Ordovician to Devonian age that have been fractured by major north- trending faults, as well as northeast-trending structures of the Lachlan Transverse Zone that are prospective for Au-Ag and base metal mineralisation, as shown by many recorded mineral occurrences and the presence of historic mine workings such as those at Gumble.

The styles of mineralisation being explored for include analogues of Brown’s Creek (skarns), Cadia-Ridgeway (wallrock porphyry copper-gold), Mt. Aubrey (epithermal gold) and Ravenswood (mesothermal vein-hosted gold). The EL is 50 km directly to the north of Cadia and covers similar Ordovician age shoshonitic volcanics. The Cu-Au discovery at Wellington-Galwadgee is less than 10 km to the east of the EL while the Copper Hill Deposit (resources 133 Mt at 0.31 Cu and 0.28 Au) with drill intercepts of 100 m @ 0.3 g/t Au, 0.87% Cu and 180 m @ 0.21 g/t Au, 0.45% Cu is 15 km to the south and along strike. This is a porphyry Cu/Au system in Ordovician volcanics, which also hosts the Cadia operations (2,475 Mt @ 0.5 g/t Au, 0.3% Cu, (2008) containing 39.4 Moz Au and 6.96 Mt Cu).

Prospectivity is enhanced by:

• Ordovician-aged volcanics (as at Cargo, Cadia-Ridgeway, Goonumbla).
• The presence of Major north-south trending faults intersected by northwest-trending faults of the Lachlan Transverse Zone (as at Cadia-Ridgeway).
• I-type, fractionated intrusive rocks, e.g. the Gumble Granite.
• Numerous old prospects.
• Structural complexity, providing conduits and prepared sites for mineralisation.
• Magnetic anomalies, possibly associated with buried Ordovician age monzonites, that are targets for large ’blind’ gold-copper deposits.

The Catombal Creek disseminated Cu zone extends from Owens Shaft south for 25 km and contains a number of untested Cu prospects in tuffs and lavas. Several prospects appear to be related to mineralised skarns associated with acid volcanics extending over several kilometres. The mines at Pine Hill - Gumble - Delaney’s Dyke contain Au in skarn (+Cu-Zn-Sn-Bi-Fe-Ag). This is a similar mineralised environment to that found at the Browns Creek Au deposit to the southeast, and these mines warrant further checking.

The Cumnock Cu Mine, which historically yielded several tonnes of 10% Cu ore with Au (60-90 g/t), and Ag (90g/t) credits, has mineralisation present as sulphide blebs and disseminations in quartz veins, that are located in Silurian andesites. Exploration in 2007 included a -80# soil geochemical survey over the mine area on a staggered 100 m by 100 m grid that covered the main shaft and a smaller shaft 400 m to the southeast. 41 samples were collected with some 20% noted to be anomalous in Au, As, Cu, Pb, and Zn, mainly about the 2 shafts. Results are considered positive and the anomaly is open to the north, requiring follow-up prospecting/sampling.