Taruga Minerals on the hunt for gold, lead and silver in the Gascoyne

Taruga Minerals is expanding its exploration plans at the newly acquired but historic Thowagee lead and silver project.

The project features two historic, polymetallic mines with the company confident it can expand the brownfields asset. Pic: Getty Images

• Taruga off and running at historic Thowagee project in the Gascoyne

• Company following up gold, lead and silver trends at the project

• Expanded exploration activities to be carried out during July and August

Special Report: Taruga Minerals is expanding its exploration plans at its new Thowagee project in the Gascoyne region of WA on the trail of gold, lead and silver trends.

The company recently applied for three contiguous permits covering around 416.5km2 of the highly prospective northern Gascoyne province and containing numerous high grade historical workings for base and precious metals.

Taruga Minerals’ (ASX:TAR) Thowagee tenement is especially interesting, as it features two historic polymetallic mining operations, with the Thowagee mine previously producing 15.2 tonnes of lead and 5878 grams of silver.

Gold, copper and zinc are also present in the mineral system. Notable historic and more recent rock chip results include up to 286g/t silver, 59.3% lead, 4.35% copper and 0.9g/t gold

And now Taruga has extended its exploration program to focus on identified lead, silver and gold mineral trends at the project.

The exploration activities planned over the coming months include:

• Extended soil sampling (5.5km2 total area to be covered)
• Ground geophysical surveys
• Slimline hand-held diamond core drilling; and
• Mineralogical investigations (petrophysics and petrology).

Chasing lead, silver and gold trends

Previous reporting highlighted gold in soil geochemical assays that include a high of 92ppb, with a distinct NE-SW trend aligning with an interpreted shear zone adjacent to the main Thowagee workings.

The company plans to identify the significance of this anomalous gold trend adjacent to historical workings, as well as expand the strike of the known silver and lead mineralised trends.

"With any exploration project, it's exciting to see the results requiring follow up- and in this case it’s a doubling of the exploration campaign area to chase numerous lead and silver trends, and a newly discovered gold trend which is offset to the main Thowagee workings,” TAR director David Chapman said.

“This area is also quite poor in basic geophysics datasets, so our ability to evolve a geological model at Thowagee will be greatly assisted by the ground mag and gravity, as potential targets may have coincident gravity and magnetic anomalies.

“The larger and more pervasive sulphide presence that has been identified through rock chip sampling will again be tested by the handheld core drilling from within the workings, as we seek to understand the full extent of the alteration halo characteristics."

The company will use new geochemical and geophysical data in conjunction with a thorough evaluation of existing, historical data to identify and prioritise the most significant targets for ongoing follow up.

This article was developed in collaboration with Taruga Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.