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The Texas Block in the New England Fold Belt, like the Georgetown Block, is considered to have potential for Intrusive-Related or Thermal Aureole Gold deposits although no large resources are known. Advanced exploration and resource definition by Macmin has defined some 35 million ounces of Ag on the Twin Hills project, 25 kilometres to the south, which has the characteristics of an Intrusive-Related precious metal system albeit silver-rich. The tenement surrounds the Bullaganang Granite, which is haloed by small historic gold-copper prospects, including the Warroo open pit resource mined in the late 1980s. Regional
magnetic interpretation carried out by QGM defined potential for
a large buried intrusive body and re-affirmed potential for
large porphyry Cu-Au deposits.
Flat lying thrust-faults are now recognised as a major
control on gold veining and a pattern of steep elliptical
structures interpreted from digital elevation models and
potassium channel radiometrics in the area surrounding the
Bullaganang Granite. Shallow south-dipping detachment zones may
have focused magmatic mineralised fluids into sites of suitable
structural complexity and/or porous lithology. The conceptual
model for shallow-dipping sheetlike bodies of mineralisation
with potential for major resources has not been previously
employed in exploration in this area. Previous efforts to
increase resources at the Warroo pit focused on trying to extend
the zone by drilling deeper rather than laterally. The model infers that the NW-trending Warroo – Commodore Zone is on the east limb of the orocline and the SW-trending Ashton – Angus zone on the west limb and that these entire structural zones are confined within a shallow south-dipping thrust zone. Shallow regional thrusting is invoked during the Texas Orocline compressional regime followed by extensional detachment along the same thrust planes. Projects: |