Final report for drilling and geophysics collaboration funding Tractor Corner Prospect

Abstract

PNX Metals Ltd ('PNX') submitted an application in 2016 for co-funding of a drilling program at the Tractor Corner prospect at the southern margin of the Pine Creek Orogen near the township of Katherine. PNX is an exploration company which has recently shifted attention towards base metals in the Northern Territory, having purchased the Iron Blow and Mount Bonnie base metal deposits, as well as earning into the substantial exploration ground held by Kirkland Lake Gold ('Kirkland Lake' ? previously Newmarket). Tractor Corner had been identified as a prospect with the potential for SEDEX (sedimentary exhalative)-style mineralisation, a new concept for this region that has never been previously tested. The objective of the proposed drilling was to test for SEDEX mineralisation, or at least to provide evidence that the area is geologically fertile for SEDEX mineralisation. The Early Cambrian age Jindare Formation had been recognised as a potential host for SEDEX style silver-lead-zinc copper molybdenum within secondary basins below the Tindall Limestone. A major base metals geochemical anomaly at least 9km in strike extent corresponds closely to the base of the Tindall Limestone of the Daly Basin. The makeup of the base metals anomaly and the depositional environment of the Jindare formation were believed to be consistent with the SEDEX model, and the hope was that the base metals were leaking from a large SEDEX source below. Using this model, fault bounding secondary basins below the Tindall Limestone were the primary structural targets, which can be interpreted and targeted at Tractor Corner in the geophysical datasets. Two diamond drill holes in different stratigraphic positions were drilled between the 18th October and 16th November 2016, for a total of 580.8m. Both drill holes were drilled on VTEM anomalies at different stratigraphic positions to provide a test of the SEDEX model. Drilling failed to intersect favourable host rocks for SEDEX mineralisation and failed to encounter any significant base metal concentration. Geophysical anomalies were attributable to conductive graphitic shales, which are interpreted as structural zones, possibly growth faults, which do provide some hope that SEDEX processes could be operative. Further work is required on the core to understand whether the strength of the VTEM anomalies is explained by the rock, and to test alteration zones intersected in basement rocks for Maud Creek style gold signatures.