Frasers Find Found - High Gold and Silver Grades
Sydney, Mar 26, 2012 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Sovereign Gold Company Limited (
ASX:SOC) has located the original shaft at Frasers Find on EL 6483 in the Rocky River-Uralla Goldfield.
The main shaft at Frasers Find (Figures 1 & 2) is situated 2.8 kilometres northeast of Martins Shaft further confirming the large scale of the newly identified Rocky River-Uralla Intrusion-Related Gold system (IRGS).
The lost Frasers Find shaft was located by Sovereign Gold during January 2012, 100 years after it was first discovered.
Recent assays and the scale of the mineralisation confirm significant potential for further gold lodes within the Rocky River-Uralla Goldfield.
The gold workings at Frasers Find extend for over 250 metres along the line of lode. The mineralisation consists of a central high-grade goldbearing vein within altered Uralla Granodiorite that hosts further, juxtaposed disseminated mineralisation; expected to be a deep tapping structure that potentially hosts wide mineralised zones analogous to Dargues Reef (Majors Creek Gold Mine, Braidwood N.S.W., 330,000 ounce IRGS gold lode in altered granite) that extends to 500m - limit of drilling.
The NSW Department of Mines reported: "The lode is in granite country, and is cleanly and evenly walled" (Annual Report, 1912, p19.).
Records state the main lode ranged from 0.76 - 0.91 metres wide and contained a high-grade sulphide vein that was 0.23 metres wide at 6 metres in shaft and widened to 0.38 metres with depth.
The maximum-recorded vertical depth of the shaft was 20.4 metres and maximum of 66 tonnes of minerals were mined. A record from the Annual Report for 1912 states recovery was 27 g/t gold and 222 g/t silver from 6 tonne of mineralisation.
Assays of samples collected by Sovereign Gold from the mineralised high-grade sulphide vein (quartz, arsenopyrite, pyrite and galena) ranged from:
- 214 to 1,110 g/t silver (6.88 - 35.69 oz/t silver)
- 17.85 - 76.90 g/t gold (0.57 - 2.47 oz/t gold)
- 0.90% - 5.46% lead/tonne
Significantly, disseminated mineralisation ranging from 0.32 - 4.0 g/t gold is present in the altered granite adjacent to the main high-grade lode and indicates width potential.
The high-grade samples (Table 1) came from a stockpile left by Fraser and his party beside the main shaft when they abandoned the area in 1914 - there were several blocks of mineralisation up to 30cm long.
Other assayed samples (Table 2) of disseminated and sheeted vein mineralisation came from pits along the line of lode. The most south-westerly test pit (FS9, Figure 1), located 197 metres from the main shaft, ended in goldbearing mineralisation (Table 2) indicating further mineralisation may extend along strike. This lengthy zone of mineralisation has only been explored by test pits and shallow shafts and has never been mined.
The mineralisation exhibits classic diagnostic Intrusion-Related Gold System (IRGS) characteristics especially high bismuth (Bi, up to 0.24%) and anomalous Sb (antimony), Sn (tin), W (tungsten) and Te (tellurium) - indicative of gold-bearing fluids being derived from a magmatic (intrusive) source.
Frasers Find is just one of several 'walk-up' drill targets Sovereign Gold has identified for drilling campaign commencing late April 2012.
Drilling at Frasers Find will follow the lode along strike and down dip.
The structure hosting Frasers Find has a northeast trend and probably represents a cooling fracture developed in the granite that tapped, channelled and focused a reservoir of late stage gold-bearing fluid. These structurally controlled hosts for gold mineralisation can extend for several hundred metres laterally and vertically. Sovereign's geologists, as a result of discovering one of the major controls on the location of gold mineralisation, have identified several nearby north-east trending structures that host other gold occurrences.
Frasers Find. Sample FFSB (Table 1), High grade quartz-sulphide (abundant arsenopyrite, pyrite, galena) from the dump by the main shaft, assayed 76.9 g/t gold (2.47 ounces), 287 g/t silver (9.23 ounces) and 1.78% lead/tonne (ALS Certificate of Analysis BR12004879).
Frasers Find. Sample FF3D (Table 2). Disseminated mineralisation in altered granite adjacent to main high-grade lode. Quartz-sericite altered granite with disseminated sulphides (much now oxidised to yellow limonite) and sheeted quartz-sulphide veins. Assayed 3.43 g/t gold and 5.91 g/t silver (ALS Certificate of Analysis BR12004879).
Drilling is planned to test the width of the disseminated mineralisation, the high-grade lode and for repetitions of high-grade parallel veins.
To view the complete Sovereign Gold announcement including Tables & Figures, please refer to the following link below:
http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-SOC-672578.pdf
Historical Note:
Andrew Donald Fraser and his prospecting party discovered the Fraser Find lode in 1912 (at age 55) and abandoned it in mid 1914 at the outbreak of the WW1, because he couldn't get satisfactory returns over a stamper battery from the sulphide-rich mineralisation.
Records show he only sunk shafts along the lode but never mined-it. His party brought 66 tonnes to surface and it was this material that was sampled by Sovereign Gold in January 2012, 100 years after discovery.
The bulk of the lode is still in-situ. Andrew Donald Fraser (1856 - 1942) is buried, along with Thunderbolt the Bushranger, in the Old Uralla Cemetery.
About Sovereign Gold Company Limited
Sovereign Gold Co Ltd (ASX:SOC) is an Australian-based specialist gold exploration company. Sovereign Gold has a portfolio of quality tenements located in Eastern Australia where there is known potential for the occurrence of Intrusion-Related Gold Systems (IRGS). Sovereign Gold has a highly prospective tenement package covering the Rocky River-Uralla Goldfield, 21km southwest of Armidale, NSW, Australia. Sovereign owns the recent Mt Adrah Hobbs IRGS discovery south-east of Wagga Wagga, NSW.
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