Golden Dragon consolidates prime WA goldfield
Brought to you by BULLS AND BEARS
Michael Busbridge
Golden Dragon Mining has doubled down on its gold bet in Western Australia’s fertile Murchison Goldfields by consolidating 600 square kilometers of world-class, underexplored tenure, known as the Cue gold project, into a single, centralized landholding.
In particular, the wider region is an infrastructure-rich, tier-one mining region that is home to more than 35 million ounces of gold.
Land consolidation brought together previously fragmented tenures into a single, coherent exploration package with serious gold pedigree.
Westgold Resources’ massive Big Bell gold mine lies just down the road with around 2.3 million ounces lurking in its combined resource base, while the historic Cuddingwarra mining hub, also held by Westgold, has produced around 780,000 ounces of gold at 2.1 grams per tonne.
Before the Golden Dragon’s unification efforts, the ground had been carved out by multiple explorers, leaving a patchwork of small, isolated apartment buildings. Exploration was often done in a piecemeal manner, with programs stalled at margins and lacking a coherent region-wide approach.
Golden Dragon believes it is a winning strategy. By first organizing the land location, the company was able to use modern drilling and exploration technologies to create a more refined and focused exploration network on the land.
The new approach also appears to be paying some early dividends, with some older possibilities involving important historical junctures suddenly starting to attract attention.
For example, results at Bering Bore, one of the company’s potential customers, had previously reached 8 million at 7.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 12 million at 5.4 g/t gold, and 8 million at 5.8 g/t gold on a small mining lease. Interestingly, the borehole collars drilled from these holes end at the old apartment boundary, potentially leaving significant surplus value on the table.
With Golden Dragon now holding the adjacent lease as part of the consolidation, the company now has an adjacent parcel of land that will allow it to more comprehensively pursue results and other expansion goals.
Since its listing in October last year, Golden Dragon has commenced work completing its first RC drilling program in the Bering Bore, with drilling analyzes planned for February.
The company also has a pipeline of drill-ready targets for other historical prospects across Coodardy. These include the Curtis Find, where past drilling yielded 3m of 11.2g/t gold, and the Piston, which achieved 0.9g/t gold on a larger 24m intersection. Most leads only saw occasional follow-ups and remained open in many directions and depths.
The Cue project is located just sixty kilometers northwest of the town of Cue and is surrounded by operating processing facilities including Westgold’s Tuckabianna Mill and Ramelius’ Mount Magnet operations. The potential for a lucrative remuneration deal with nearby operators if Golden Dragon runs into wage trouble highlights a practical commercialization path for the company.
Major shear zones in the region appear to strongly influence the distribution of gold mineralization in the Murchison Goldfield. The Big Bell and Cuddingwarra gold mines are located adjacent to the northeast-southwest oriented Big Bell shear and the Cuddingwarra shear, highlighting the importance of both regional structures.
Both the Big Bell and Cuddingwarra trusses extend over sixty kilometers according to airborne magnetic imagery and run through the western part of the Golden Dragon housing package. Given that both structures are associated with gold mineralization along their strike lengths, they present clear and intriguing opportunities for the company, with strong potential for new gold discoveries in largely underexplored territory.
The Emily Wells transection is the third regionally significant shear zone, intersecting the eastern half of the tenements. Prospects such as Stockyard East and Jeffery Well are located close to cutoff and have untapped potential as evidenced by historical intercepts including grading 5.77 g/t gold over 8m and 5.0 g/t gold over 5m.
In particular, significant parts of the Coodardy appear to be hidden beneath transported cover of varying thickness, including extensive and often deep palaeodrainage channels. These underexplored regions often lie above large shear structures that are easily eroded, offering greater opportunities for new discoveries.
Adding to the project’s attributes, two volcanically hosted massive sulphide (VMS) horizons, known as the Wattagee and Emily Well horizons, bisect Golden Dragon’s eastern tenements at Coodardy.
In the early 1970s Esso Exploration and Eastmet Minerals Ltd. Mapping by , several iron ore outcrops rich in zinc and copper were discovered near the Wattagee Well, 30 km north of Cue.
Esso achieved significant grades of zinc-copper sulphide mineralization in diamond drilling, with best results grading 7.5 per cent zinc and 0.42 per cent copper in 3m from 228m. Another hole was a 10-foot spike, grading 4.68 percent zinc and 0.7 percent copper from 164 feet; Abnormal gold was seen in the analysis.
These historic base metal intersections provide a significant exploration opportunity for Golden Dragon; because VMS deposits typically occur as clusters with downward and along-strike extensions within distinct volcanic stratigraphic horizons.
While historical drilling has focused on base metals, the geological environment near a major shear zone and the occasional gold recorded are considered likely for orogenic gold mineralization.
To further diversify its commodity pipeline, Golden Dragon has acquired the Stella Range project, a single exploration license located in the north-east corner of WA’s Eastern Gold Fields. Secondary exploration targets here, which are thought to be prospective in terms of primary nickel sulphide mineralization, include nickel laterite, gold, rare earth elements and platinum group elements.
A few years ago St George Mining and BHP carried out geophysical surveys and drilling on the Irwin Hills-Stella Range greenstone belt. A follow-up drilling program revealed disseminated and veinlet nickel-sulphide mineralization in suitable komatititic rock types.
At the time, BHP believed the komatiites were compositionally similar to those of the productive Agnew Wiluna belt, which hosts world-class sulphide nickel deposits such as BHP’s Mt Keith and Perseverance mines.
Golden Dragon reviewed this work and identified multiple nickel-sulphide and PGE targets that require follow-up research.
With rods already spinning and analysis pending, Golden Dragon has quickly transitioned from land consolidator to active explorer in one of Australia’s most proven gold belts.
Backed by a district-scale backdrop that appears to have strong geological control structures and multiple walking targets, the company now has the wherewithal and logistical advantages to pursue a meaningful discovery and potentially expedite any success in a region built on gold.
With the price of gold seemingly unstoppable, rising more than 25 percent this month to its current high of US$5,564 (AU$7,869) per ounce, the company is letting go of the reins just in time.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: mattbirney@bullsnbears.com.au
