PRIVATE Cloncurry explorer Transition Resources is so impressed with the latest assays from its greenfields drilling in Queensland that it believes it may have discovered a multi-billion-tonne, gold-rich mineral system.
Transition drilling at Cloncurry
• Exploration / Development > Discovery
• 16 February 2022
By Haydn Black
Reporter
It’s a big claim, with little in the way of evidence beyond modelling yet, but drilling over a small area over the past year has provided plenty of encouragement.
It hinges on proving the prospectivity of the 21km-long, previously unknown Highway Corridor that the company initially defined in 2020, with the presence of both gold and a suite of so-called critical metals such as tungsten and cobalt, and high-value rare earth elements including the sought after neodymium and praseodymium.
It has reported assays from the oxide zone such as 11m at 9.58 grams per tonne gold from 31m and 9m at 10.3gpt from 35m, and 9m at 10.4gpt from 76m and 11m at 6.92gpt from 63m in the sulphides.
Tungsten intervals include 22m at 0.6% from 152m, including 8m at 1.6% from 152m.
While full assays are pending for other elements, Transition founder and executive chairman David Wilson said cobalt grades up to 3906 parts per million and NdPr of 746ppm have been sampled.
An enthusiastic Wilson has described discovering the Highway Corridor as “hitting the jackpot”, although the drilling has so far been limited to a small area, and a substantial investment will be needed for a JORC resource.
“This is a significant new find of unknown scale,” Wilson concedes.
While greenfields discoveries are always most interesting in their early stages, as the data starts to paint a picture of resource, Wilson said “every single hole we drill is adding value”.
“… Most through intersecting mineralisation including up to bonanza grades, and others through providing important vectoring information that contributes to our understanding of this significant new system,” he said.
Wilson said the data-driven company believes it has made the first genuine greenfield discovery in the Cloncurry district in decades, bringing new ideas to the region, with a mix of traditional exploration methods and innovative technologies.
“By thinking differently, Transition is essentially casting fresh eyes over highly prospective yet overlooked ground. It is like being the first to explore one of the most heavily mineralised regions on the planet,” he said.
The Highway Corridor is obscured by cover, and has no history of historical mine workings, and is not even close to existing producing mines.
Over the past year Transition has completed 22,000m of drilling, mostly within a 650m-long zone to define multiple orebodies.
While gold resources offer it the chance to most quickly generate production via a small mine strategy, the company remains convinced there is still copper out there, given the wider Cloncurry area is so well endowed with the red metal.
In the near future, it wants to commence drilling of its new REE discovery, and commence deeper diamond drilling of deeper geophysical targets, which could be tier one intrusive systems.
“The Highway discovery appears to be part of a very big, regional-scale system,” he said.
High-resolution geophysical surveys over 14km of the Highway system, and detailed surface geochemistry over 4km, indicates settings comparable to those discovered at Highway, Wilson said.
“(While) our understanding of the system is still very much a work in progress, it appears, however, that an exciting and potentially very big story is unfolding.”
At the moment the company is privately funded, but the scale is such that Transition is open to third-party interest.
The company, formed in 2018, has around 1070sq.km, both east and west of Cloncurry. Wilson was previously involved in a number of companies and was heavily involved in CuDeco’s Rocklands copper discovery at Cloncurry.
