Summary:
Paddington Mining Area's deposits grouped into four gold projects:
• Greater Mt Pleasant Gold Project comprises twenty-one gold deposits: Lady Bountiful, Lady Bountiful Extended, Mt Pleasant, Racetrack OC and UG, Royal Standard, Green Gum, Blue Gum, Homestead UG, Golden Kilometre UG, Quarters 040 UG, Tuart OC and UG, Marlock, Natal, Golden Swan, Black Flag OC and UG, and Rose deposits.
• Carbine Gold Project has five gold deposits: Bullant UG, Bullant South, Bullant West, Wattlebird, and Breakaway Dam deposits.
• Ora Banda Gold Project includes six gold deposits: Enterprise UG, Enterprise West, North Sandalwood, Gimlet South UG, Sleeping Beauty, and Tom Allen deposits.
• Golden Cities Gold Project consists of seven gold deposits: Havana, Federal UG, Mt Jewell, Mulgarrie, Tregurtha South, Tregurtha, and Hughes deposits.
Mt Pleasant Project
Racetrack OC and UG Deposit
In general, the gold bearing ores contained within the fresh rock of the Racetrack deposit are Refractory in nature.
Tuart UG Deposit
There are 3 main lode systems: 060°, 080° and 115° lodes. Numerous other small lodes have been encountered and resource modelled but are essentially small splays emanating from the three main lode orientations.
The Tuart 060° trending lodes have a moderate north-west dip and are structurally disjointed over an interpreted 1,100-1,300m strike length. The Tuart 115° trending lode has a moderate southwesterly dip, and is structurally continuous with an interpreted strike length between 500-600m.
Vein styles within the various lode horizons range from ‘brittle-ductile’, ‘brittle-faulted’, to ‘extensional’ types of veining with associated alteration assemblages and gold mineralisation.
Gold mineralisation is usually associated with pyrite sulphidation that contains minor traces of sphalerite and galena. These base metals are usually associated with high gold grades.
High gold grades are associated with quartz veins and/or silica-carbonate-chlorite-sulphide (+/- visible gold) alteration assemblages. There are a large number of existing drilling intersections into the 060° and 115° lodes that demonstrate that high grades are associated with these strike orientations.
The main Tuart 060° vein structures are differentiated between 3 dominant lodes. The Main (601), Footwall (621) and Hanging wall lode (609) have formed, alongside several minor parallel lodes. The 060° veins commonly display different textural characteristics, from brittle, brittle-ductile and ductile variants (see figures below). The 115º Lode is a brittle-ductile =2m shear structure.
Carbine Project
The Carbine-Zuleika Operation is located within the northwest-trending Coolgardie-Carbine Archean greenstone belt. The primary structure in this area is a gently dipping, northwest-trending syncline composed mainly of sedimentary rocks, felsic volcanic rocks, and minor mafic/ultramafic intrusions from the Black Flag Group. Gold mineralization typically occurs along geological contact zones, particularly between mafic and ultramafic units.
Bullant is situated along the Zuleika Shear Zone, a prospective regional north-northwest trending structure. The Shear Zone is a broad ductile to brittle structural corridor contained within a mafic unit in the mine area. The Shear Zone dips sub-vertically to steep east dipping.
Bullant UG Project
The majority of the Bullant gold mineralisation is hosted within the steeply dipping Main and East lodes. Both lodes are commonly 2 m in thickness that strike 320° with a vertical dip. High grade gold is commonly on the eastern contact of the shear structure. Strike length of the lode system is approximately 400 m. The Main lode is the principal mineralised body, parallel to the shear structure. The East Lode is a parallel structure to the Main Lode and is similar in terms of structural orientation and mineralisation style.
Ora Banda Project
The greenstone sequence in the Ora Banda mining area consists of thick ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks, overlain by intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks and sediments.
Geological control on the Enterprise deposit comprises the intersection of an east-west trending structural corridor with a stratigraphically favourable south-west dipping dolerite sequence.
Gimlet South Project
Mineralisation styles in the Ora Banda area have been historically sub-divided into Gimlet style and Enterprise style. Gimlet style mineralisation is hosted by 060° trending brittle-ductile faults within the Victorious Basalt and Bent Tree Basalt. Both pillowed and massive horizons within the mafic volcanics tend to be favourable to mineralisation, with structural intersections producing south-west plunging ore shoots.
Gimlet-style ore is predominantly pyrite-pyrrhotite-gold with localised concentrations of arsenopyrite, sphalerite, galena and tellurides. Pyrite is the dominant ore mineral with arsenopyrite, sphalerite, marcasite, chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite occurring as inclusions within euhedral pyrite grains. Chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite are commonly attached to coarse pyrite grains that are aligned in trails along micro fractures.
Gimlet gold mineralisation styles are generally refractory in nature, with metallurgical recoveries varying with deposit and lode.
Golden Cities Project
The Golden Cities mining lease includes five deposits: Havana, Federal, Jakarta, Mt Jewell, and Mulgarrie. Gold mineralization in this area is linked to Archean orogenic tectonic and metamorphic events, specifically regional D2–D3. All deposits are part of the Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt, characterized as ductile shear zone-type gold deposits, with gold sourced from granitoid complexes and deep hydrothermal activity.
Havana, Federal, and Jakarta are located within the Kalgoorlie Terrane’s Boorara Domain greenstone belt, inside the Scotia-Kanowna granite/granodiorite dome. Gold is primarily found at intersections of northeast to north-northeast trending faults with northwest-trending faults, associated with demagnetization of the dome’s granite.
The Mulgarrie deposit is on the eastern limb of the Scotia-Kanowna batholith anticline. Its structural trend is north-northwest to south-southeast, aligned with the greenstone stratigraphy of the Boorara Domain. Mineralization is mainly controlled by a northeast-dipping thrust fault along the contact zone of komatiite/high-Mg basalt within brittle shear zones in carbonate-altered lenses, with low greenschist facies metamorphism.
Federal UG Project
The mineralisation is located in brittle & brittle-ductile deformation zones trending 315° and dipping 60° to the northeast. Gold is hosted within vein sets in the brittle (northern) zone of the open pit & in the ductile S/C fabric within the brittle-ductile (southern) zone. A brittle vein array exists in the footwall of the deformation zones. Discrete alteration assemblages proximal to the ore zone are muscovite & biotite and act as a visual indicator to the higher-grade portions of the ore zone.
The Federal deposit is hosted within a hornblende-biotite-granodiorite of the Kanowna-Scotia Granite Complex. There are two major supergene gold enriched zones in the regolith, namely one zone near the base of weathering (saprolite) and the other at the base of highly oxidation(Boho). Primary gold mineralisation is localized by a sinistral brittle-ductile shear zone(315NW/-60NE) in the granodiorite complex.