Carnavale is targeting high-grade Gold mineralisation at Kookynie
Carnavale Resources Limited (ASX:CAV) acquired 80% of the high-grade Kookynie Gold Project (“KGP”, “Project”), located 60km south of Leonora and 150km north of Kalgoorlie in Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia (Figure 1). In addition the Company has 100% of P40/1480 and E40/394. The Project covers an area of approximately 50km2, comprising 2 exploration licenses E40/355, E40/394 and 3 prospecting licenses P40/1380, P40/1381 and P40/1480.
Details of current exploration programs are described in ASX releases.
Simplified geology and significant Gold deposits
Kookynie Prospectivity
The Kookynie area has strong gold production history from high-grade quartz vein deposits dating back to the late 19th century. The high-grade quartz vein deposits, found in the area, usually are representative of larger systems comprising numerous individual high-grade lodes.
All the significant historical high-grade lodes mined at Kookynie have been discovered in areas of outcrop that were discovered by prospectors at the turn of the last century. The Project has the benefit of similar geology and structural setting with along strike extension of the mineralised structures. The most significant producing mines are associated with high-grade gold shoots within North-South trending quartz veins interacting with the Puzzle granite (Figure 2).
Dark Blue CAV, Red Metalicity, Light Blue Genesis, orange GTi Resources
The geology of the project area is dominated by the Keith/Kilkenny tectonic zone within the north-northwest trending Archaean aged Malcom Greenstone belt which can be seen reaching from Sons of Gwalia in the North through the Kookynie District in the south (Figure 2).
The historic mining together with the recent exploration success of other explorers in the region provide strong support for the prospectivity of the Project. The major structural corridor extends from the Tier 1 Sons of Gwalia gold mine (>8Moz) owned by St Barbara Limited (SBM), through the Leonora Gold Project (2.0Moz) owned by Genesis Minerals (GMD) and 10km further south to the Kookynie region (>0.65moz production) where NEX Metals, Metalicity and GTI Resources are achieving exploration success.
At Kookynie, historic production has occurred from the historic Cosmopolitan Mine (360,000oz @ 15g/t production) which lies 1km east of the project and the Champion Mine (33,000oz @ 17g/t production), the smaller mines of McTavish, Leipold, Batavia, Altona Diamantia, and Cumberland lie adjacent to the Project (Figure 2 and 3).
The Kookynie Project
The Kookynie Project area is covered with a thin layer of transported material and was previously under explored with only 2 RC holes and limited wide-spaced RAB / aircore drilling undertaken within the project area. Carnavale is excited to have the opportunity of applying modern geochemistry and drilling techniques to this highly prospective area.
There are two types of gold mineralisation associated with the Kookynie area, firstly, high-grade gold is associated with pyritic quartz veins hosted within north to northeast dipping structures crosscutting favourable lithologies also high-grade gold is associated in magnetic, granitic fractions of the granite plutons local to the Kookynie area such as the Puzzle granite that underlies part of the Project.
The Kookynie Project is located in the central portions of the historic mining centre, which has produced over 650,000oz from high-grade gold lodes. The Company has been successful in identifying new, high grade gold lodes, under cover at McTavish East and McTavish North within the Kookynie gold Project. Each RC program has added ounces to the Project’s potential resource base. Carnavale’s strategy is to explore and define sufficient high-grade gold resources that can be mined and trucked to one of the many nearby processing plants in the region.
