St George Mining Ltd (ASX:SGQ) has started a multi-faceted exploration program at its newly acquired Woolgangie Project in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, which has the potential to host lithium, rare earths and copper.
The Woolgangie project comprises a dominant landholding of 3,350 square kilometres in an underexplored region of the Coolgardie Mineral Field and takes in more than 90 kilometres of the Ida Fault – a major crustal boundary that controls multiple major minerals deposits within WA.
St George’s first-ever field program at Woolgangie will include aircore drilling, an airborne magnetic survey, a ground-based electromagnetic survey and soil surveys.
"Excellent opportunity for new discovery"
St George Mining executive chairman John Prineas said, “We are delighted to announce that we have commenced fieldwork at Woolgangie, an exciting project that St George only acquired in February.
"Woolgangie offers an excellent opportunity for a new discovery in an area of the Eastern Goldfields that has seen very limited exploration other than for gold and nickel.
“Historical drilling has revealed thick zones of copper and rare earths mineralisation that present as attractive prospects and warrant follow-up work. In addition, extensive pegmatite trends at the project have yet to be systematically explored for lithium.
“Woolgangie is an example of how St George is building out our portfolio of highly prospective exploration assets to deliver a pipeline of value-creating opportunities for shareholders.
“The project is located in a Tier 1 mineral hotspot and – for the first time – is being worked over using modern exploration methods to fully investigate the potential for economic mineralisation.
“In parallel to Woolgangie, we are planning the next phase of lithium exploration at the Mt Alexander Project as well as our maiden field programs for the lithium prospective tenements recently acquired through our subsidiary, Lithium Star Pty Limited. We will be announcing more about these field programs soon.
“St George will be an active explorer for the remainder of this year. We look forward to reporting further on the multiple field programs underway.”
Lithium
While the project has not seen any previous lithium exploration, multiple pegmatite outcrops have been identified across the project tenure.
The priority exploration target is an area that is about 25 kilometres long and is adjacent to the western margin of the established lithium region that hosts several major lithium mines, including Mineral Resources’ Mt Marion mine which hosts a 71.3 million tonnes at 1.37% lithium oxide mineral resource.
Rare earth elements (REE)
Historical drilling identified wide zones of REE anomalism, although previous REE intercepts were not assayed for heavy rare earths nor followed up with a targeted exploration program.
A 2,500-metre aircore drill program is now underway to test for ionic clay-hosted REE mineralisation across a 55-square-kilometre area.
Copper
Historical drilling also intersected wide zones of copper mineralisation were intersected by historical drilling, but no follow-up exploration has been done despite drilling the extensive copper sulphides encountered.
St George will complete a ground-based moving loop EM survey to better model prospective EM conductors ahead of plans for drilling.
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