Barton Gold Holdings Ltd. holds 100% interest in the Challenger Project through its subsidiary, Challenger 2 Pty Ltd.
Challenger 2 Pty Ltd is the owner of:
• Company’s interest(s) in Challenger Tenements;
• Challenger Mine, Challenger Mill, and Challenger Camp.
Summary:
Gold mineralisation at the Challenger deposit is hosted within granulite facies gneisses and is predominantly associated with deformed quartz veins. The mineralisation is structurally controlled, occurring as high-grade shoots that plunge steeply within narrow lodes. These lodes occupy the limbs and hinge zones of a tightly deformed, isoclinal fold package approximately 500 metres in width, comprising multiple subparallel lodes.
The deposit is located within the meta-sedimentary Christie Gneiss (2,650 Ma) within the Mulgathing Complex, part of the north-western Gawler Craton. Peak metamorphism occurred around 2,440 Ma. The presence of invisible gold in löllingite and not in adjacent arsenopyrite and the presence of spherical gold sulphide inclusions in peak metamorphic garnet and other silicates suggest an earlier mineralising event. The absence of typical alteration halos, which usually signal younger fluid-driven mineralisation, further strengthens the case for a pre-metamorphic gold event.
The Challenger deposit occurs within the Mulgathing Complex of the Christie Subdomain in the north- western Gawler Craton, with the area characterised by Archaean to mid-Proterozoic high- grade metamorphic (granulite facies) gneissic basement.
Gold mineralisation at the Challenger Mine occurs in deformed quartz veins within narrow plunging lodes hosted by gneiss. The lodes represent the limbs and hinge zones of an isoclinal fold package around 500m wide containing multiple subparallel lodes in a deposit with intense structural control and a dominant 30-degree plunge to the north east.
The mineralised structures are interpreted to have a high level of continuity with individual shoots being mined and interpreted through drilling data for over 2,200m of plunge extent from surface (1,193 mRL). The deposit extends from surface to -147 mRL (~1.3km depth).
Challenger lodes include Challenger West (CW), Challenger South-Southwest (CSSW), Aminus, M1, M2, M3 and South East Zone (SEZ). The lodes are offset some 150m in plan by the 215 Shear at a depth of 900 – 1,000 metres, but continue to plunge at a similar orientation below the shear and all are open to depth. M1 and M2 have been mined on several levels below the 215 Shear. The deposit has been developed to ~1,130m depth (065 mRL).
High-grade gold mineralisation is associated with coarse-grained quartz veins with feldspar, cordierite, and sulphides within a hornblende orthoclase chlorite-sericite alteration assemblage. There are three main types of vein styles:
• Quartz dominant veins, which may be remnant pre-metamorphic mineralised veins;
• Polysilicate veins, which are dominant in the primary ore zones and host the majority of the mineralisation; and
• Late stage pegmatitic veins, which are unmineralized, with cross-cutting relationships.
Coarse visible gold of variable size and in association with sulphide mineralisation is a common feature of the higher-grade ore zones.