ASX-listed Kula Gold is looking to head into the new year with a slurry of results from six months of drilling across its expanding tenement package in key prospective West Australian terranes, including the developing South West terrane and West Yilgarn nickel, copper and PGE province. A follow-up program at the company’s recently discovered Boomerang kaolin-halloysite project near Southern Cross is high on Kula’s agenda and will likely kick off next month.
Kula recently delivered thick, shallow hits of bright white kaolin from a maiden three-hole drilling program along some 300 metres of strike at Boomerang.
All holes intersected kaolin clay zones averaging 42m thickness from just 5m depth. Scanning electron microscope imaging by leading Australian government research organisation, CSIRO, confirmed the qualitative nature of its halloysite over a 10m interval that graded an impressive 7 per cent halloysite.
Further reverse circulation and diamond drilling at Boomerang is planned for the current quarter as Kula looks to test the volume of kaolin and generate material for metallurgical test work.
Interestingly, Kula has also sniffed out traces of gold below the kaolin clay zone that coincide with a known geophysical target and anomalous soil geochemistry. The company said planned resource drilling into the kaolin clay zone will be extended a further 10 to 15 metres to test for gold mineralisation.
Kula has also been busy adding to its strategic lease-holding at several of its projects around Western Australia. Notably, the company acquired several key tenements adjacent to its Brunswick project which contain the historic Donnybrook gold mine. More than 1,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal were churned out there between 1897 and 1903. A new lease of life was given back to the mine in the 1930s and 1940s as the Hunter Venture mine.
Kula recently reported assay results up to a superb 7 grams per tonne gold from eight rock chips collected from spoil around the old Hunters headframe and at nearby Mt Cara last month which correspond nicely with historical drill intercepts identifying epithermal gold mineralisation by BP Minerals & West Coast Holdings in the early 1980’s and BHP in the late 1980’s.
The company said it is undertaking further historical data collection and will collect new surface channel samples at Mt Cara and to the north along strike of the interpreted vein system. A RC drill program is reportedly planned for early 2022 designed to test the near surface, higher gold grades outlined in the historical drilling.
The Brunswick project covers about 250 square kiloemtres of tenure approximately 150km south of Perth, with Kula identifying three different types of prospective mineralisation at the project.
Whilst the epithermal gold mineralisation has been the focus of historical exploration, the company says the project hosts potential for nickel-copper and platinum group element mineralisation as it sits in the in the highly prospective Western Gneiss Terrain which hosts Chalice Gold Mines’ proclaimed Gonneville discovery to the north.
Kula says Brunswick also shows potential to host Archean copper-gold type mineralisation akin to Newmont’s Boddington copper-gold mine some 75km north-east. Boddington produces a staggering 700,000 ounces of gold and 35,000 tonnes of copper per annum, making the mine one of the largest in the world.
In addition to progressing its assets at Donnybrook and Boomerang, Kula has boosted its landholding at Westonia to 357 square kilometres. The Westonia project is located a good tennis ball throw from Ramelius Resources’ 2-million-ounce Edna May gold mine.
The company said it has reprocessed publicly available gravity and magnetic geophysical data and identified a slew of high-priority anomalies. Interestingly, the newly granted tenement has seen little historical exploration despite its proximity to the high-grade Edna May gold mine.
Kula has wasted no time in chasing up the targets, with an auger geochemical program due to commence this quarter subject to state government regulatory approvals.
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By Matt Birney
