Annual report EL 22957 Spring Hill for the period 13 January 2008 to 12 January 2009

Abstract

The Exploration Licence was held by Tennant Creek Gold (NT) Pty Ltd until it was acquired by Western Desert Resources Ltd in July 2007. The tenement surrounds the historic Spring Hill gold mining centre. The exploration licence is underlain by sediments of the South Alligator Group and the Finniss Group of Palaeoproterozoic age. These rocks have been folded along NW trending axes and the folds are tight to isoclinal. A major anticline, the Spring Hill Anticline, occurs in the project area and plunges to the south. The Pine Creek Shear, a regional NW trending structure, trends through the eastern part of the tenement. Gold and tin mineralisation occurs within the project area. Gold was discovered in the area in the 1870's. Mining activities at Spring Hill took place between 1880 and 1905, and then intermittently until 1966. Total recorded production was about 22,000 oz of gold which was mainly derived before 1900. Mining mainly took place on the Main and Middle lodes with the oxidised ore being worked to depths in excess of 200m. Tin workings can be found at the Horseshoe, Jimmys Knob, Teacup and Mundic prospects north of Spring Hill. Tin was discovered at the Jimmys Knob mine in the late 1880's. A considerable amount of underground development was undertaken until 1909. It appears that several tons of tin concentrate were probably produced, however no records exist for the period. The mine was reopened in 1964-68 and in 1977 with production of about 1.4t of tin concentrate. Previous exploration in the area has been for gold. Although systematic modern exploration has been carried out in the tenement area, no significant discoveries have been made. Western Desert Resources Ltd has carried out an airborne EM survey over the tenement during 2008. Preliminary interpretation of the airborne EM data shows that an anomalous conductive zone occurs within Koolpin Formation rock in the NW portion of the EL. It is possible that the anomaly could be related to carbonaceous and pyritic sediments. An airborne EM survey was flown by GeoForce using their Skytem system over the tenement during September 2009. A total of 283 line kilometres were collected in an eastwest direction. The nominal terrain clearance was 30m and the line spacing was 150m.