Kula unearths high grade halloysite discovery

Kula Gold continues to tick boxes in its exploration efforts in Western Australia with SEM imaging confirming the quality of the halloysite over a 10m interval that graded an impressive 7 per cent halloysite at its exciting Boomerang discovery near Southern Cross. Elsewhere, the company has beefed up its Brunswick tenure east of Bunbury with the acquisition of the historical Donnybrook gold mine.

Kula recently delivered thick, shallow hits of bright white kaolin from a maiden three-hole drilling program along some 300m of strike at Boomerang. All holes intersected kaolin clay zones averaging 42m thickness from just 5m depth.

XRF analysis in the 10m halloysite mineralised hole also showed 89 per cent kaolinite from 40m.

Management says the scanning electron microscope, or “SEM” imaging conducted by revered Australian government research organisation, CSIRO has now verified the qualitative nature of the halloysite.

The CSIRO report found halloysite in the hole to be present as tubes, noting the “good particle separation and spread” in the composition of the halloysite and kaolinite.

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.

Boomerang lies in an infrastructure rich region that has water, rail, sealed roads and towns, all in the vicinity of the project.

To the east of Bunbury in Western Australia, Kula has grown its exploration footprint at its Brunswick project by snapping up a 2.9 square kilometre tenement hosting the historical Donnybrook gold mine.

The Donnybrook mine churned out more than 1,000 ounces of gold between 1897 and 1903 and the mine was again jolted back into production between the 1930s and 1940s.

Kula is now compiling historical data for the licence area which it acquired for a “paltry” $15,000 plus a 1 per cent net smelter royalty. Curiously, mining titan BHP worked the Donnybrook licence in the 1980s.

Kula plans to conduct surveying of the old shafts and use downhole cameras to survey the crosscut drives at the mine. A small surface channel sampling program to define the gold distribution at surface is also being considered.

The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety also recently granted Kula all of its outstanding exploration licence applications for the greater Brunswick project to the north of the new Donnybrook tenure.

Brunswick covers about 250 square kilometres of tenure where Kula has identified three different types of mineralisation.

Intriguingly, the company says the project hosts potential for nickel-copper and platinum group element mineralisation similar to Chalice Mining’s heralded Gonneville discovery to the north.

The Gonneville discovery hole last year returned 19m at 2.6 per cent nickel, 1 per cent copper, 8.4 grams per tonne palladium and 1.1 g/t platinum from 48m. It sent Chalice’s share price soaring from under 20c prior the discovery to as high as $9.34 recently.

Chalice has so far identified 11 high-grade mineralised zones along a 1.8km-by-0.9km area, with a further 24km of strike yet to be drilled.

Kula says Brunswick is also prospective for epithermal style gold mineralisation as evidenced by the historical Donnybrook mine.

It also says the tenure 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.

Kula has submitted 840 rock chip samples taken from Brunswick to the labs, with gold, platinum and palladium set to be analysed. Assays remain pending.

Punters will no doubt be keeping a close eye Kula as it looks to deliver exploration successes at Boomerang, Brunswick and now Donnybrook.

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