Annual report EL 22957 Spring Hill for the period 13 January 2010 to 12 January 2011

Abstract

EL 22957 was held by Tennant Creek Gold (NT) Pty Ltd until it was acquired by WDR Gold Pty Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of 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 ounces 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 100m. Old 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 rocks in the NW portion of the EL. It is possible that the anomaly could be related to carbonaceous and pyritic sediments. During the reporting period, Western Desert Resources collected 21 stream sediment samples and undertook further geophysical interpretation of the EM data. On 21st January 2011, Western Desert Resources announced details of a proposed sale of the project (including adjacent mining lease ML 23812) to Thor Mining PLC.