Elsienora Project (EL6767)
NEAR SURFACE GOLD MINERALISATION AT ISABELLA
Sultan Corporation Limited has recently conducted a review of exploration activities undertaken at its wholly owned Exploration Licence No. 7002 ‘Isabella’. The review conducted on existing databases was primarily focussed on gold and has established that a number of significant near surface gold intersections occur at the Isabella prospect.
EL 7002 was granted to Sultan Corporation Limited on January 8, 2008 for an initial period of two years and is located in eastern New South Wales, approximately 60 km south of the city of Bathurst. It lies 30 km northeast of Sultan’s Peelwood North project, where it is currently developing a copper-zinc mine. See Figure 1 for location of the Isabella prospect. The licence area is part of the Lachlan Fold Belt and there are a wide variety of mineralization styles in the district including the world class Cadia Hill group of deposits which are hosted by Late Ordovician monzonite intrusives and occurs approximately 60 kilometres to the northwest. The Isabella prospect itself is hosted by the Ordovician Age Triangle Formation and these rocks are principally volcanic and quartz sandstones, phyllite and metabasalt. Ten kilometres further to the west these rocks also host the Lucky Draw gold deposit which produced 200,000 ounces of gold from a little less than 1.5 million tonnes during the period 1988-1991. The locations of these significant deposits are shown in Figure 1.
There are known historical mineral occurrences for gold and base metals in the area occupied by EL 7002. Modern exploration began in the early 1970’s with the most significant historical exploration work being undertaken between May 1984 and May 1992 by Renison Limited.
Mineralization is 1.7 km long and up to 200 metres wide and is hosted by a north trending unit of chloritised siltstone which is identified as part of the Ordovician Triangle Formation. There are a number of higher grade near surface intercepts within a broader zone of low grade mineralization. Significant intercepts obtained by the Renison drilling programme are shown in Figure 2
The Isabella prospect is approximately 30 kilometres from Peelwood where Sultan is currently developing its Peelwood North copper and zinc project. This is a relatively easy trucking distance and Sultan would not need to discover a standalone deposit at Isabella. Appropriate modifications to the processing plant would be required but it may be possible to extend the life of the Peelwood North operation using medium to high grade gold ore trucked from Isabella.
