Annual exploration report Year ending 14 April 2003 EL 10347 Golden Dyke Dome

Abstract

EL 10347 is located 145km SE of Darwin, NT and 14km SE of the Brocks Creek gold treatment plant. It covers metasediment and concordant dolerite sills of the Lower Proterozoic Pine Creek Inlier. The tenement is centred on the Golden Dyke Dome, a faulted structural feature at the southern end of the Yam Creek-Golden Dyke gold-mineralised belt. Several historic gold mines occur in the immediate region, preferentially hosted by cherty carbonaceous mudstones of the Koolpin Formation that comprise the lower part of the South Alligator Group. These include the Golden Dyke, Davies Nos 1 and 2, Black Rock Shaft, Fishers Lode-Afghans Gully and Langleys. These prospects are partly under separate tenure, and held by the Burnside Joint Venture. The exploration licence surrounds the better prospects and structural extensions or repetitions are thought to be present. Modern exploration work commenced in the early the 1980s and included geological mapping, costeaning, soil sampling diamond drilling and RC drilling. This led to a phase of open pit mining in 1984 when Henry and Walker mined a total of 295,000t of ore at 4.0g Au/t from several of the above prospects. Later investigations estimated that some parcels of residual gold mineralisation were present. These were subjected to further drilling including diamond core work. Several extensions at low to moderate grades were defined, mostly over narrow widths. Northern Gold NL acquired the prospects in the mid 1990s, conducted extensive technical reviews and did rehabilitation work in the vicinity of Golden Dyke open pit. In April 2002 Northern Gold NL entered into a joint venture agreement with Buffalo Creek Mines NL that included a schedule of tenements and mining assets within a 30km radius of the Brocks Creek treatment plant. EL 10347 was granted soon after and was included in the gold ranking and review process that was carried out by Burnside Operations P/L on all of the joint venture tenements. The joint venture had the objective of exploring, developing and open pit mining known gold resources in the region. Concurrently the parties carried out underground mine development at the nearby Zapopan Mine, carried out resource definition RC drilling programs at several properties and refurbished the Cosmo Howley camp. This activity was suspended in late April 2003 due to economic concerns. During the year review work on EL 10347 was costed at $800.00. No field work undertaken during the reporting period.