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Tuckabianna Project - WA (Silver Lake 100%)

Background

Gold was discovered at Tuckabianna in 1915 with intermittent small scale production from rich mineralised pods within the hostbanded iron formation ("BIF"). During the period leading up to the commencement of modern open pit mining operations in 1988, total gold production was 53,000 oz at an average grade of 18 g/t Au.

Between 1988 and 1997, approximately six million tonnes of ore was treated from the Tuckabianna area for a total production exceeding 500,000 oz Au. Most of this production came from 17 different open pits located within Silver Lake’s project area.

Location

The Tuckabianna project is situated approximately 25 km east of Cue in the Murchison Province of the Archaean Yilgarn Block. The project consists of 15 granted tenements covering 238 km².

Geology

Gold mineralisation at Tuckabianna is mostly developed within brittle zones associated with well laminated BIF units. Gold is also found along the margins of quartz-feldspar porphyry dykes and in narrow isolated rafts of BIF within the greenstone stratigraphy. These mineralised zones are interpreted as having resulted from faults which cut the stratigraphy at a low angle. Gold is generally associated with quartz-carbonate-pyrite-pyrrhotite stringers developed within these zones.

Silver Lake’s project area covers a significant strike extent of a regionally extensive shear zone, the north-northeast trending Moyagee Shear, which sub-parallels the Lena Shear to the east. In the eastern portion of the project area, gold mineralisation is spatially associated with the Tuckabianna Shear, which is regarded as a low angle splay off the Moyagee Shear.

Resources

	Measured Resources			Indicated Resources			Inferred Resources			Total Resources
Deposit	Ore t '000s	Grade g/t Au	Total Oz Au '000s	Ore t '000s	Grade g/t Au	Total Oz Au '000s	Ore t '000s	Grade g/t Au	Total Oz Au '000s	Ore t '000s	Grade g/t Au	Total Oz Au '000s
Tuckabianna	-	-	-	2,327.1	2.8	212.1	2,393.0	3.1	237.9	4,720.3	3.0	450.0

The tenement area has previously been subjected to extensive shallow drill coverage with the hole spacing over the main mineralised trends around 200 metres by 80 metres and increasing to 50 metres by 20 metres about the existing open pits. The project data base contains over 23,000 drill holes as illustrated in Figure 1. 

A significant opportunity exists to outline deeper zones of high grade gold mineralisation both below and along strike from the existing open pits that could be exploited in a bulk underground mining operation. Only 382 of the drill holes in the project data base have a depth greater than 100 metres. Of these holes, 60 are greater than 150 metres depth and 29 are greater than 200 metres depth. On this basis, the exploration potential of the project is considered by Silver Lake to be high.

Exploration Programme

An extensive exploration drilling programme is being carried out at Tuckabianna with a total budgeted expenditure of $2.76 million.

The Silver Lake exploration plan is to focus a majority of the effort on the extension of Tuckabianna West and Caustons. The programme will commence aiming to expand the Tuckabianna West resource to the North and South using both surface diamond and RC drilling techniques.

Silver Lake’s initial exploration focus will be on the validation of the Tuckabianna West and Caustons resources. The programme will also test for along strike and depth extensions to these resources (refer to Figure 4).

The base and upside case targets have been estimated as follows:

Deeper diamond drilling is focussed on the Tuckabianna West and Caustons areas. These resources are open along strike and down dip. The deep drilling is testing these areas of prospectivity with the view of doubling the current resource which equates to a base case conceptual target of 500,000 oz.

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