The Conversation (0)
Augustus Minerals (ASX: AUG; “Augustus” or the “Company”) is pleased to advise the results of recent reconnaissance mapping and sampling at the Ti-Tree Project, located 200kms east of Carnarvon in Western Australia. The mapping, supported by 26 rock chip samples, identified two areas containing mineralised veins and historic workings (Figure 1). Neither of these prospects are recorded on GSWA maps.
- Two new prospects, Tiberius and Claudius, have returned high-grade copper and significant silver assays in rock chips from recent field work
- High grade assays up to 17.8% Cu and 282g/t Ag have been discovered on the Tiberius zone, currently 3m wide and extending for over 200m along strike.
- Claudius, 11km south of Tiberius, comprised of several parallel zones over a 100m by 300m area, returned grades up to 6.6% Cu and 86g/t Ag.
- The discovery of these prospects, 30km northwest from Copper Ridge which contain historic workings not marked on GSWA maps, highlights the significant prospectivity of the Gascoyne region.
- Further field work is being planned to determine the extent of these new discoveries.
Andrew Ford, GM Exploration
“These results highlight the potential of this underexplored area to host as yet undiscovered mineralisation. Less than 5% of the 3,600 sq km area of the Ti-Tree Project has had any previous exploration, and to discover unrecorded historic mining areas is very exciting. These results are a credit the Augustus geological team.”
Figure 1 Location of the Tiberius and Claudius prospects
Tiberius
Reconnaissance field work conducted on the Ti Tree Project’s northwestern tenement has discovered high grade copper and silver mineralisation (Figure 3) in two areas. Tiberius, the northern target comprises a quartz-sulphide vein system up to 3m wide and outcrops for over 200m (Figure 5).
A shallow shaft has been dug on the vein system (Figure 2). Another vein set was identified 600m along strike east-northeast of the main vein increasing the potential size of the target. The high grade veins contain both oxidized copper, high silver grades, lead sulphide and anomalous gold (Table 1).
Claudius
The Claudius prospect is located 10km to the southwest of Tiberius, comprised of quartz veined brecciated and silicified granite with mineralised veins mapped over a 100m x 300m area. The main area of outcropping mineralisation has been trenched by prospectors and rock chip sampling returned strong copper mineralisation in an iron rich siliceous vein. Silver was consistently elevated (up to 86g/t) with associated gold anomalism to 0.68g/t (Table 1, Figures 4 and 6).
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Augustus Minerals, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
AUG:AU
Augustus Minerals Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects
GET YOUR FREE INVESTOR KIT
Augustus Minerals
Diversification can be key to a profitable mining and exploration strategy. While there's no shortage of companies that have experienced great success by focusing on a single commodity, there's always an element of risk to that approach. There is always the risk that certain commodities will fall in price whilst others rise. Augustus Minerals, a newly listed exploration company on the ASX (AUG) is cognizant of this fact. An exploration company based in Western Australia, Augustus has acquired a 100-percent interest in a land package covering some 3,600 square kilometers in Western Australia's Upper Gascoyne region. Although traditionally known as a source of base metals, gold and uranium, the Gascoyne is rapidly emerging as a prime target for rare earths and lithium discoveries.
As an early mover to the region, Augustus’s vast landholding is highly prospective for lithium, rare earths, copper and gold. Its Ti-Tree project contains 85 kilometers of the Ti Tree and Mingabar shear zones, with extensive, untested, multi-element mineralization and surface anomalies.
The Gascoyne region is a large emerging critical mineral province with several deposits having been discovered in the last few years. These include multiple Ironstone REE discoveries by Dreadnought Resources (ASX:DRE), Hastings Technology's (ASX:HAS) Yangibana Ironstone REE project and Lanthanein Resources' (ASX:LNR) Lyons Ironstone REE project, as well as a large lithium discovery at Delta Lithium's (ASX:DLT) Yinnetharra location.
Directed by a highly experienced management team with extensive knowledge about mining and exploration in the Gascoyne, Augustus's exploration program will focus on more than 50 priority targets already identified by the company. These include potential lithium bearing pegmatites, REE-rich ironstones and shear/porphyry-hosted copper systems. Thus far, the company has completed multiple geophysical surveys and collected more than 15,000 soil samples.
Company Highlights
- Augustus Minerals is an Australian exploration company focused on the highly-prospective Gascoyne region of Western Australia.
- The company has 100 percent ownership of a land package covering 3,600 square kilometers.
- Augustus has identified multiple high-priority lithium, rare earth and copper targets throughout its project, with strong mineralization intersected at multiple locations across multiple commodities.
- Augustus's leadership team has the benefit of significant local knowledge regarding exploration of the Gascoyne province.
Key Asset
Ti Tree Project
Situated in the Shire of Upper Gascoyne and the Shire of Carnarvon, the Ti Tree project displays significant exploration potential for a number of different mineralised styles as well as possibly, multi-commodity discoveries. Spanning a contiguous 3,600 square kilometers, it also has the distinction of being one of the largest properties in the region. Augustus Minerals maintains 100 percent ownership over Ti-Tree, which intersects along the shear of the same name.
The company has identified several high-priority drilling targets along the Ti-Tree and Mingabar structures ready for reverse circulation, diamond or air core drilling.
Highlights:
- Emerging Geological Province: The Gascoyne region displays highly prospective geology and has been the site of multiple rare earth and lithium discoveries in recent years, but has experienced limited historic exploration — making it a prime opportunity for Augustus Minerals.
- Multiple Commodities: Augustus has identified more than 50 significant lithium, rare earth and copper targets. Many of these high-quality targets are ready for drilling.
- Size and Speed: The Ti Tree Project consists of a single coherent block of tenements covering 3,600 square kilometers with 85 kilometers of strike along the Ti-Tree Shear. As an early mover in the region, Augustus was able to gain a considerable advantage in securing this project, into which it has thus far invested $5 million.
- Fertile Geology: Augustus's investment displays the same geology as multiple highly successful neighboring discoveries.
- Mineralization: Current mineral resource targets include:
- 27 rare earth targets across 65 kilometers of strike. All targets display strong thorium radiometric signatures.
- Multiple mafic intrusions with copper-nickel-PGE (platinum group elements) mineralization. The copper resource is both shear-hosted and porphyry-related.
- Elevated lithium stream samples over 10 kilometers of strike length. The target area displays the same geological host rock as the Yinnetharra lithium discovery.
- A narrow, shear vein-hosted gold occurrence with anomalous mineralization displayed in several surrounding areas. The area, known as the Bassit Bore, outcrops at the surface, where visible gold is readily identifiable in hand specimens. Samples collected over 600 meters returned very high gold values.
Management Team
Andrew Ford – General Manager, Exploration
Andrew’s career spans 35 years of exploration and mine development experience in multiple commodities for both majors, including Homestake and Barrick Gold, and junior ASX-listed companies. He has led technical teams throughout Australia, Africa, USA, Europe and Asia, including leading the geology team at the Bawdwin base metals project in Myanmar through the DFS process.
In his most recent role Andrew has led the geology team at Hastings Technology Metals with a focus on resource growth and exploration at the Yangibana Rare Earths Project, where Mineral Resources have now grown to 29.93Mt of TREO.
Brian Rodan - Executive Chairman
Brian Rodan is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy with 45 years’ experience. Previously, he was the managing director and owner of Australian Contract Mining (ACM), a mid-tier mining contracting company that successfully completed $1.5 billion worth of work over a 20-year period.
For 15 years, Rodan held various roles with Eltin Limited (including general manager between 1993 and 1996 and executive director between 1996 and 1999), Australia’s largest full service ASX-listed contract mining company with an annual turnover of $850 million. He was a founding director of Dacian Gold (2013) and Desert Metals (2020) and became the largest shareholder upon listing both companies on the ASX.
Rodan is currently executive chairman of Siren Gold and Iceni Gold Limited, and is currently the largest shareholder in both companies as well as Augustus Minerals.
Graeme Smith - Non-Executive Director
Graeme Smith is an experienced resources sector chief financial officer, company secretary and corporate executive who has worked with mining and exploration companies with operations in Australia (Croesus Mining NL, Genesis Minerals Limited, Jabiru Metals Limited, Breaker Resources NL, Pluton Resources Limited) and overseas (Tanga Resources Limited, Ikwezi Mining Limited) for the past 30 years.
He is the principal of Wembley Corporate Services, which provides company secretarial, CFO and corporate governance services to public companies.
Smith is a fellow of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants, the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and the Governance Institute of Australia. He is currently the company secretary for Alto Metals, Avenira, Renegade Exploration and Enterprise Metals, and was a director of ASX-listed Anglo Australian Resources.
Darren Holden - Non-Executive Director
Dr. Darren Holden is a geologist with 28 years of industry experience in mineral exploration and exploration technologies. He has worked in North America, the Pacific and Australia, where he has been involved in discovery-stage copper, gold, silver, molybdenum and platinum group elements deposits. He specializes in regional to local scale targeting using the integration of geology, geophysics and geochemistry.
Holden is a past vice-president of Geoinformatics/Fractal Geoscience and a former CEO of a publicly listed gold explorer. He currently runs exploration advisory business GeoSpy, and is a co-founder of successful private project generation businesses Marlee Minerals and Odette Geoscience. He is also currently a director Aurumin (ASX:AUN) and chair of OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6), as well as several private companies.
Holden holds a BSc (hons) first class (geology) from The University of Western Australia and a PhD (history) from The University of Notre Dame Australia. He is a fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and a member of the Geological Society of Australia.
Unconformity Uranium Drill Targets Identified from 2024 Geophysical Data
Key Highlights
- Final data received and interpretation completed for the ground electromagnetic geophysical surveys from the winter 2024 program at the Marshall and North Millennium projects.
- Several conductive anomalies identified at Marshall, located above and below the unconformity, consistent with regional exploration model.
- Stacked anomalies concurrently with multigenerational geophysical data provides a base to assess the exploration targets and refine drillhole targets.
- The projects are located 15 kilometres from the majority Cameco owned Millennium deposit, and just 40km from the world class McArthur River mine.
- Basin remains funded for the next round of field exploration.
The ground electromagnetic successfully identified 3 main targets which confirms the geological and exploration model. Of note is Target 1 (Figure 1), where modelled EM plates below the unconformity align with a sandstone ZTEM anomaly, which is interpreted to be alteration within sandstone. The identification of these targets is encouraging and consistent with regional trends in the southeastern Athabasca and provides increased confidence in drill hole targeting. Basin is currently reviewing options and priorities of how to progress exploration of these confirmed targets.
Basin’s Managing Director, Pete Moorhouse, commented:
“Conducting ground geophysical surveys on Marshall and North Millennium was a milestone in advancing these underexplored projects in Basin’s uranium portfolio. The form of these anomalies is highly encouraging given the proximity to some of the world’s largest uranium deposits.”
Key results
Following the encouraging conductive anomalism highlighted by the 2023 3D inversion of two historic airborne Electromagnetics (Z‐Tipper Axis) (“ZTEM”) datasets partially covering the current North Millennium and Marshall projects3,4, Basin contracted Discovery International Geophysics5 to carry out ground Stepwise Moving Loop Transient Electromagnetic (‘Ground EM’) surveys on areas of immediate interest within the Projects.
Figure 1 Three main anomalies shown from 2024 ground EM, in plan view (top diagrams) and cross- section looking northeast (bottom diagram). The ground EM anomalies are displayed with the modelled plates against the historical ZTEM data.
The 2024 Ground EM survey data returned six conductive anomaly picks producing three main target areas (Figure 1). The anomalies correlate strongly with the southern edge of the circular ZTEM conductive anomaly at Marshall and the interpreted northern edge of the circular anomaly identified in the historic data. A weaker EM pick was also interpreted centred between the two prominent ZTEM conductivity anomalies.
Three-dimensional modelling using Maxwell produced six electromagnetic conductive plates within the basement stratigraphy, all below the unconformity (Figure 1). The two southeastern plates are clearly aligning with a conductive sandstone ZTEM anomaly identified from the historic data, which is above the interpreted unconformity. This is interpreted as potential basal sandstone alteration proximal to the EM anomalies and constitutes a high-priority drill target area, refer figure 2.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Basin Energy, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
Airborne EM over Multiple Targets on Ti-Tree Project
- Augustus Minerals has contracted UTS Geophysics to conduct a VTEM Max survey over several Copper, Cu-Ni-PGE, Zn-Pb-Ag and Uranium targets along the money Intrusion and within proximity of the prospective 85k long Ti-Tree Shear.
- The surveys will cover:
- The Money Intrusion, prospective for Cu-Ni-PGE mineralisation.
- Copper Ridge and Nics Bore over anomalous Copper Drilling results
- The Coo Creek prospect where drilling by Augustus in 2023 identified strongly anomalous Zn-Pb-Ag mineralisation.
- The Munaballya Well North area which shows potential for economic Uranium mineralisation.
- The surveys will help to advance the untapped potential of the Ti-Tree project to host economic mineralisation of multiple commodities.
Andrew Ford, GM Exploration
“The VTEM survey will provide key targeting data over three highly prospective and different prospects with potential for multiple commodities. Whilst the high prospectivity for copper mineralisation has been well documented, the addition of uranium and Broken Hill base metal style mineralisation highlights the quality of the underexplored Ti-Tree project”.
VTEM
UTS Geophysics has been engaged to conduct a helicopter borne VTEM Max survey comprising 646-line km over three separate survey areas. The system is excellent for locating discrete conductive anomalies as well as mapping lateral and vertical variations in resistivity which helps map structure, alteration and rock type. The system also collects magnetic data through a caesium magnetometer. The transmitter/receiver loop is suspended on a cable approximately 40m below the helicopter (Figure 1).
Figure 1 VTEM Max helicopter deployed electromagnetic survey arrangement.
Figure 2 Prospects and VTEM Survey areas.
Money Intrusion
The Money Intrusion, which has proven potential to host Ni-Cu-Co-PGE (platinum group elements), is part of the regional Mundine Well Dolerite Suite, a regionally extensive dolerite (strike length >80km). This extensive mafic intrusion, which is comprised of a variety of lithologies, including gabbro in the core, olivine dolerite on the chilled lower contact or keel and fine-grained dolerite on the outer edges. Mapping, aeromagnetics and multi-spectral imagery show that the Money Intrusion within the Ti-Tree Project covers a strike length greater than 16km, reaching widths >600m in the north of E09/23241.
Click here for the full ASX Release
This article includes content from Augustus Minerals, licensed for the purpose of publishing on Investing News Australia. This article does not constitute financial product advice. It is your responsibility to perform proper due diligence before acting upon any information provided here. Please refer to our full disclaimer here.
Augustus Minerals Investor Kit
- Corporate info
- Insights
- Growth strategies
- Upcoming projects