If ever you needed convincing of this fact or doubted that the little end of the mining game is back in town, consider two things: firstly, the number of small IPOs being readied for launch; and secondly, the amount of camel country being unveiled or spun-out of existing companies by optimistic promoters.
The latest upbeat play to cross MiningNews.net’ desk is from a small private explorer called Geoservices Pty Ltd. Registered in New South Wales, Geoservices issued a statement recently calling its Hargraves ground, “four hours out of Sydney”, a world-class gold prospect.
Hargraves, 35km south of Mudgee, is claimed to be the site of Australia’s first underground gold mine - Big Nugget Hill - which was developed in 1851 and sits on one of the world’s best large nugget alluvial goldfields with nuggets found near the mine ranging up to 2680 ounces in size.
Geoservices says it has been exploring the area for a number of years and believes following a “2kg drill chip analysis of many of the quartz intersections between the surface and 70 metres vertical depth” that it could be onto something special.
Geoservices is using the New Bendigo line of argument to make its case. The argument runs along the line that because of the richness of the gold values and the nuggety nature of the ore, past explorers have never been able to come to grips with the true value of the goldfield.
The company claims that sampling along a small 200m x 40m quartz zone at Big Nugget Hill has already unveiled about 41,500oz. It says the Big Nugget Hill line of mineralisation, which is a “Bendigo-style structure”, extends for 4.5km and therefore there is the likelihood that with large scale drilling, similar zones of mineralisation could be found along strike and at depth.
“Less than 2km east of the Big Nugget Hill line of mineralisation there are an additional two parallel major lines of gold mineralisation which have been mined in a minor way between 1875 and 1935, returning gold grades of 1-2oz per ton,” Geoservices said.
“Surface sampling along these two lines, one of which is 3km and the other 1.5km in length, have verified gold values in the same range.”
Geoservices’ other play is a large, low-grade gold resource called the Kensington prospect which is near Attunga, 25km from Tamworth.
Using just seven drill holes, Geoservices believes it could have a resource of 6 million tonnes grading 0.6gpt. The gold mineralisation is coincident with “a potential 10Mt of tungsten mineralisation grading 0.3%”
But why is Geoservices telling us all this? Geoservices needs some seed capital to carry out some more drilling to shore-up the Hargraves and Attunga projects prior to floating on the ASX.
The company says its ground currently is valued using the “standard industry formula” at $1.3 million but with a bit more work is likely to be worth three to five times that figure.
