New South Wales Projects (SER 100%, NSW)
In 2018, the Geological Survey of NSW (GSNSW) identified five key regions as part of their involvement in the MinEx Cooperative Research Centre (MinEx CRC) National Drilling Initiative program. These regions are undercover extensions to known mineralised terranes and the focus areas for the next 10 years of the GSNSW involvement in the MinEx CRC. GSNSW has already undertaken a detailed review of the legacy data within these regions and has planned targeted geochemical and geophysical surveys prior to drilling. SER has now successfully secured a significant portfolio of high-quality exploration projects that all reside within the NSW Mineral Allocation Areas (MAAs) as shown below, along with an area inside the Mundi MAA region.
EL9012 SOUTH COBAR
The South Cobar project covers 287km2 of fertile stratigraphic sequences of the Cobar Supergroup immediately adjacent to the undeveloped Browns Reef Zn-Pb-Cu volcanic massive sulphide deposit. SER’s project area contains multiple gold and base metal occurrences along prospective north-east trending reactivated growth faults between basement and basin infill sequences.
New Frontiers Drilling Program Awarded
In December 2021 SER was awarded a New Frontiers Cooperative Drilling grant to undertake a proposed five hole, 1700m diamond drilling program at Achilles 1 ranging in depth from 250m to 400m to test for possible Cobar-style Cu-Au mineralisation associated with the Achilles shear. The drill program is eligible for the reimbursement of 50% of the direct drilling cost.
Since EL9012 was granted in November 2020, SER has undertaken a technical review of historical exploration and geophysical datasets and conducted a detailed 50m and 100m spaced airborne magnetic and radiometric survey. This survey was utilised to plan a 250-sample, 400m x 200m spaced CSIRO Ultrafine+TM next gen analytics soil geochemical survey over a 4km x 4km area surrounding the Achilles 1 Prospect, which is set to commence this month and will be used to further refine planned drillhole locations. Immediately to the north, Australian Gold and Copper (ASX:AGC) are drill testing the Achilles 2 & 3 Prospects and we await these results with interest.
EL9057 EAST COWAL & ELA6397 SOUTH COWAL
The East and South Cowal projects are located in the Junee-Narromine Volcanic Belt overlying the interpreted Cowal Igneous Complex of the Lachlan Fold Belt. The tenements both lie within 20km of the operating Cowal Gold Mine (a > 11Moz Au low sulphidation carbonate-base metal gold system and the undeveloped Marsden Copper-Gold porphyry deposit (> 1Moz Au & > 500kt Cu), both owned by Evolution Mining Ltd (ASX:EVN).
These two tenements have seen previous exploration for copper and gold mineralisation, which has resulted in a large, high quality dataset of high resolution geophysical data (detailed airborne magnetics/radiometrics, ground gravity and ground EM), diamond drilling and aircore drilling. SER will reinterpret the existing drilling and geophysical data to identify potential untested Cu-Au targets for further detailed geophysics, and where appropriate conduct drill testing.
ELA6407 NORTHEAST MUNDI
The Northeast Mundi project covers 474km2 of the Curnamona Province in the northeast of the Mundi MAA, centred approximately 65km NNW of Broken Hill. SER was drawn to the project following the identification of a large crustal conductivity anomaly, which was initially identified in the lower- to middle-crust by the 55km-spaced AusLAMP long period magnetotelluric (MT) survey and further resolved in the upper crust by the 2km- to 4km-spaced Curnamona Crustal broadband MT (CCMT) transect, undertaken in 2017. The “finger”-shaped conductor identified in the CCMT, which is closest to surface at station CC56, has strong similarities to MT conductivity anomalies that have been demonstrated to be associated with iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) mineralisation in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.
This is a true Greenfields project that is considered as primarily prospective for IOCG mineralisation. The exploration plan is based around building a systematic, high quality geologic and geophysical database over the project area, leveraging off the new data generated through the MinEx CRC including the Mundi AEM survey whilst increasing the quality of key datasets (magnetics and gravity) as required.
ELA6393 GAREMA
The Garema project covers a 20km long undercover extension of the Parkes Fault Zone, recognised as a major controlling structure for orogenic gold mineralisation associated with the Middle Devonian Tabberabberan Orogeny in NSW, and is associated with significant gold mineralisation along its ~150km exposed length, from Alkane’s (ASX:ALK) >2 Moz Au Tomingley gold project to the north to the extensive historical underground workings at Wheogo Mountain, approximately 30km WNW of Grenfell, for which production is unknown.
The application area has seen little previous exploration, with the only significant on ground work being undertaken by Newcrest in the early 1990’s, with the shallow drilling of 13 RC holes, between 11m and 88m in depth which intersected very low level gold mineralisation in the basement. The area is also covered by a open file high-resolution (100m line spacing, 45m sensor height) aeromagnetic dataset, which was flown in 2011.
SER will compile and reinterpret the existing available data (in particular the aeromagnetics) across the area to define exploration targets for further detailed work. Follow up work will include detailed ground or drone geophysics, soil geochemistry and aircore drilling to map basement geology and identify geochemically anomalous areas. SER believes that Ultrafine+TM next gen soil geochemistry will be an effective tool to identify orogenic gold mineralisation and will utilise this technique. Priority targets will then be followed up through RC drilling.
ELA6396 NYMAGEE
The Nymagee project is within the South Cobar MAA, on the eastern margin of the the Siluro-Devonian Cobar Basin, overlying the approximately N-S trending Woorara Fault, which also intersects SER’s current EL9012, located 60km to the south. Basement outcrop within the application area is limited, comprising Devonian shallow marine sedimentary rocks of the Cobar Supergroup to the west, and Silurian Erimeran Granite to the east. A fault bounded package, interpreted to be Ordovician deep marine sandstone of the Abercrombie Group, does not outcrop in the application area.
The project has seen very little previous exploration, other than a handful of stream sediment samples and 30 shallow auger holes that were targeted on magnetic highs and intersected magnetic palaeochannel fill. Further to the south, the Woorara fault is associated with polymetallic Cobar-style mineralisation, most notably at Brown’s Reef, and SER considers this application area to be prospective for this style of mineralisation. This potential is supported by the results of the GSNSW-CSIRO Cobar hydrogeochemical study, published in 2020, which highlighted the area under application as anomalous for Ag, Pb, Zn, Cu and Co. There is also an apparent conductivity anomaly associated with the Woorara Fault on GSNSW AEM Line 10510, which warrants further investigation.
