Tropicana East

Tropicana East Project - Western Australia

The Tropicana East Project is located adjacent to the Anglogold Ashanti/Independence Group 5 Moz Tropicana gold deposit, 350 km north-east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. In the last 12 months Beadell has completed Aircore and RC drilling at three prospects including the newly discovered Hercules trend.

Tropicana East Project location plan

Hercules Prospect

A significant new anomalous gold trend was discovered during wide spaced targeted reconnaissance aircore drilling with results including 1 m @ 0.7 g/t gold from 55 m, 1 m @ 0.2 g/t gold from 41 m and 3 m @ 0.1 g/t gold from 42 m on three consecutive wide-spaced drill traverses defining a strike length of at least 1 km. Anomalous gold levels also occur further along strike to the southwest, indicating a potential target zone in excess of 10 km long located along a major granite gneiss/paragneiss contact potentially linking up with the Purple Haze and Voodoo Child anomalies further to the southwest. This linear feature is interpreted to be a major shear zone fluid pathway that has the potential to host Tropicana-style mineralisation.

A first pass RC drilling program intersected widespread silica sericite alteration and moderate level gold anomalism along the Hercules Shear Zone. Importantly, this drilling identified an analogous lithological contact to that hosting the 5 Moz Tropicana gold deposit 60 km to the southwest. The generalised geology of the Hercules trend consists of garnet gneiss to the east, with a thick unit of metachert intersected close to the contact with granite gneiss to the west. Anomalous gold was also intersected two kilometres east of Hercules where a single RC drill hole, NLC016, targeting a 0.045 g/t gold bottom of hole aircore anomaly associated with a northeast-trending magnetic unit, intersected gold anomalism throughout the hole with results up to 0.3 g/t gold. This result remains open to the northeast and southwest and forms part of the broader Hercules Shear Zone anomaly.

The Hercules Shear Zone has been traversed by only siz drill lines over the 10 km strike with five of the six lines intersecting >0.05 g/t gold. The Hercules gold anomaly occurs beneath 30 to 40 m of barren transported cover with basement rocks generally stripped of any significant saprolite development. Aircore drill penetration into the prospective basement is generally restricted to only a few metres, resulting in limited geochemical dispersion.

The Hercules Trend remains highly prospective and sparsely explored for Tropicana-style mineralisation and the next stage of exploration will focus on systematic infill drilling of the 10 km anomalous corridor between the southern tenement boundary near Purple Haze and the northeast extension of the Hercules trend.

Neale Prospect

The Neale prospect consists of two sub-parallel zones of northeast-trending gold anomalism, each over 2 km in strike length. Transported cover averaging 10 m thick overlies moderately weathered basement with some saprolite development.

The western zone is hosted within variably-altered and strongly-deformed felsic schist with minor iron oxide after disseminated sulphide observed in the weathered bedrock. Intersections greater than 0.1 g/t gold occur on three consecutive drill sections over a strike length of 600 m. Results from the western zone include 1 m @ 0.3g/t gold from 27 m in NL01940, and 1 m @ 0.2 g/t gold from 53 m in NL0231. The eastern zone is hosted within mafic and felsic gneiss forming a coherent linear northeast-trending anomaly over a 3 km strike length. Previous aircore drilling along this trend intersected supergene-type gold with results up to 1 m @ 0.7 g/t gold from 23 m.

Limited first pass RC drilling of the Neale prospect intersected broad zones of sericite alteration with a maximum composite result of 5m @ 0.15 g/t gold in hole NLC013 from the western zone.

Tropicana East - Neale & Hercules prospects location map and aeromagnetic image

Tropicana East - Hercules Drill Section

Pleiades Prospect

Wide spaced aircore drilling on approximately 1 km by 250 m hole spacing at Pleiades Lakes has intersected a large low tenor gold anomaly 20 km east of the Tropicana deposit. The coherent north-east trending anomaly at greater than 0.01 g/t gold has been intersected on 4 drill traverses over a strike length in excess of 7 km. The anomaly is partly transported and hosted within basal gravels, but is also hosted within bedrock saprolite in a north-east orientation, mimicking the underlying orientation of the basement geology. A maximum result of 0.09 g/t gold was recorded in transported cover within the anomaly. The Pleiades area is interpreted to represent a major north-east faulted offset of the Tropicana structural domain.

Pleiades Prospect Location Map and Aeromagnetics