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Auzex granted further Buller permit; drilling for tungsten
12 June 2007 - The Australian and New Zealand mineral explorer Auzex Resources Ltd has been awarded an exploration permit near Westport on the West Coast of the South Island
The Cascade Creek EP 40 862 covers a 5357 hectare area on the north bank of the Buller River.
Auzex director Dr Greg Partington said the new permit drains a granite area that seems to be shedding bismuth and gold, suggesting a granite-gold-type system similar to areas in the company’s other Buller permits.
Dr Partington also said that two diamond drill holes have now been completed at Auzex’s Kirwans tungsten and gold prospect 12 kilometres east of Reefton in the 6600 hectare EP 40 845 permit in the Kirwans Hill area. He said one more hole was still to be drilled.
The holes so far drilled had intersected similar zones of quartz and scheelite to that sampled by previous explorers in a surface trench.
“If the grade in the holes is similar to the trench then there is the potential for a very significant tungsten system,” Dr Partington said.
The deposit seems to be similar to the type being developed by Vital Metals at their Watershed project in North Queensland, he said.
In a release last month Auzex said the Kirwans tungsten deposit drilling is targeting the tungsten mineralisation at varying depths beneath broad zones of outcropping scheelite-bearing quartz veins.
Tungsten is a hard brittle metal used for making stainless steel alloys, cemented carbides and electrical contacts.
Auzex reports on its website that it plans to carry out prospect scale soil sampling in late 2007 in its Lyell gold prospect (EP 40 732) which had potential for Reefton-style gold mineralisation. The prospect is on the site of the Lyell goldfield where one mine, Alpine United, produced 80,000 oz of gold at an average grade of 16.8 grams per tonne.
The website also reported that it began a regional stream sediment sampling programme at Mt Rangitoto, in PP 39 272 inland from Ross in southern Westland, in April. This followed the encouraging gold rock samples returned from previous exploration. Unfortunately the onset of poor weather forced this programme to cease and it is now expected to resume in late 2007.
Mt Rangitoto was a silver producing mine and its surrounds are the primary focus of the initial exploration. Silver mineralisation at Mt Rangitoto is also associated with bismuth and gold. This metal association, in a region that contains tin-tungsten and bismuth-gold mineral occurrences, is indicative of a mineralisation system associated with granite intrusions.
New Zealand Minerals Ltd (NZML) is currently earning a 50% interest in all Auzex NZ properties through the expenditure of NZ$1.7M, with Auzex NZ retaining management of all projects.
Source: Auzex Resources
