Murchison Base Metals Project
Venus Metals has 2 granted tenements (E59/1592 and (59/1593) and 3 pending tenement applications totalling 1411 sq km in the northwest Yilgarn Craton covering exploration targets for base metals and uranium.
In July 2010, CSIRO researchers in collaboration with Venus Metals collected 86 shallow groundwater samples (from established wells and water bores) for hydrogeochemical analysis. The CSIRO researchers believe that “Ground water interacts with mineralised rocks and creates a geochemical signature that may be much greater in size than the mineral deposit as the ground water is more mobile than the surrounding minerals”. Samples were collected and analysed according to the methods in Noble and Gray (2010). QA/QC was ensured using duplicates (inserted 1 in 15) and a contamination parameter determined from previous work on groundwater of the northern Yilgarn (Gray et al., 2009). Mineral saturation indices were created using PHREEQE and Geochemists Workbench.
Elemental and mineral saturation data were mapped and compared to the regional groundwater of the adjacent northeast Yilgarn Craton (Gray et al., 2009). Elevated groundwater uranium was found in the Yarloo Well and Meka project areas with this signature being similar to groundwater signatures observed around calcrete hosted U prospects in the northeast Yilgarn Craton. Significantly, the sample collected at Yarloo Well (E59/1593) has strongly elevated Cu (466ppb) and Zn (540ppb) values. CSIRO researchers report that “The groundwater is more saturated with respect to these secondary copper minerals than any other sample previously collected in the northeast Yilgarn regional groundwater. The Yarloo Well groundwater chemistry is similar to that found in groundwaters near the Jaguar VMS deposit,” located 300 km north of Kalgoorlie, WA. The CSIRO sample results warrant thorough follow up exploration work, with the potential prize being a significant blind VMS copper zinc discovery in the Yarloo Well area.
It is proposed that the area surrounding the Yarloo Well, be flown with a high resolution Helicopter Electromagnetic (HEM) survey. The survey will provide both conductivity and magnetic data which will highlight any massive sulphides or conductive materials. The area proposed* to be flown is shown in Figure 1.