Reviewed by Alex SmithMay 9 2022
At the Karratha Project in Western Australia’s West Pilbara Region, Novo Resources Corp. has begun highly sophisticated geophysical exploration for battery metals and gold.
Prospect location and proposed areas for ground geophysical surveys is available. Image Credit: Novo Resources Corp.
Multiple airborne electromagnetic (VTEM) anomalies [earlier defined in 2007 by Legend Mining Limited (Legend)] that have not been drill checked, as well as soil geochemical anomalies (including Cu, Ni, and Co) connected with the VTEM conductors, including Novo’s Southcourt and Milburn prospects, are being pursued through geophysical exploration.
Along the East Well/Bob’s Well Cu–Zn volcanogenic hosted massive sulfide trend, dipole–dipole induced polarization (IP) ground geophysical surveys have begun. In zones of multiple exhalate chert and carbonate horizons along the strike of the old Whundo Cu–Zn mine, the IP survey is looking for disseminated sulfide-rich alteration haloes and zinc-rich massive sulfide targets.
IP will also be used to evaluate several disseminated to blebby Ni–Cu sulfide zones, as well as sulfide related to Au–Cu–Co targets, at Novo’s Purdy’s Reward North tenement E47/1745 in the Andover area.
Airborne VTEM anomalies on Novo’s Purdy’s Reward North tenement in the fertile Andover mafic-ultramafic intrusion, relatively close to Azure’s Andover Ni–Cu–Co massive sulfide discovery, will be the focus of fixed loop electromagnetic ground geophysical surveys (FLEM), which will begin later in May 2022.
FLEM surveys will be able to delineate massive to sub-massive sulfides to depths of more than 300 m, providing targets for diamond drilling, which is expected to begin in Q2/Q3 2022. Five previously established FLEM targets have been progressed to drill-ready status, pending heritage clearance, following a historical exploration review and recent mapping.
The Milburn target in the Andover intrusion area, as well as the Roundstone, Bushmill, Banagher and Wexford targets in the Dingo/Bullock Hide and Maitland intrusions adjoining to the Radio Hill Ni–Cu–Co Mine, were defined earlier by moving loop EM (MLEM) and fixed loop EM. All EM targets are found in ultramafic and mafic intrusive rocks that are fertile.
In Q2/3 2022, a 1,550 km2 comprehensive low-level 50 m spaced airborne magnetic and radiometric survey will begin in the Becher area southwest of De Grey’s Hemi deposit, including the East Well/ Bob’s Well VHMS trend, orogenic gold targets, and the Andover intrusion.