The Ernest Giles project consists of two granted wholly-owned adjoining exploration licences: Calanchini (E38/2205) and Peterswald (E38/3185), and four pending exploration licence applications Westwood North (E38/3235), Westwood West (E38/3277), Mount Smith (E38/3612) and Welstead Hill (E38/3613) which are located approximately 250km north-east of the town of Laverton in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia. The eastern Yilgarn Craton is one of the most highly mineralised areas globally and is considered by Greatland to be prospective for large gold deposits.
Access is by the Great Central Road from Laverton and then by exploration tracks into the Ernest Giles project area.
Geology and Mineralisation
The Ernest Giles tenements cover a sequence of magnetic greenstone rocks typical of the Archean goldfields of Western Australia which host large gold camps such as Kalgoorlie, Leonora, Laverton, Mt Magnet and Jundee. The gold prospective greenstone sequence at Ernest Giles does not outcrop. Thickness of the cover sequence ranges from around 120m to more than 300m across the broader project area. Consequently, with no outcrop, the project area has not been subject to extensive historic exploration activity.
Detailed interpretation of aeromagnetic data has highlighted favourable structural regimes suitable for primary mineralisation. Initial interpretation suggests that multiple horizons of a structurally complicated, highly magnetic Banded Iron Formation are present. This strongly magnetic sequence at the Ernest Giles project is considered by Greatland to be comparable to the Mt Magnet Iron Formation and the mafic-ultramafic sequence hosting the gold deposits at Mt Magnet-Hill.
Regional geology of the Ernest Giles project
Exploration
Greatland has completed several phases of reverse circulation drilling at the Ernest Giles tenements since 2010. The majority of this work has focused on the Meadows prospect in the south of the Calanchini tenement (E38/2205) which has tested the project on a nominal 800m x 800m drill spacing. This wide spaced drilling has confirmed the presence of pathfinder levels of anomalous gold in BIF and basalt.
Several phases of surface sampling were carried out between 2013 and 2018 including Mobile Metal Ion, which correlated well with existing drilling results and provided further targets for follow up. Ground gravity and passive seismic surveys were completed in several areas inclusive of the Meadows prospect in 2018.