Mawson Gold joint ventures into the Whroo Goldfield in Australia

Mawson Gold Ltd (TSE:MAW) (OTCPINK:MWSNF) (FRA:MXR) said Wednesday that it has struck an amended and restated option agreement linked to its Whroo joint venture with Nagambie Resources Limited (NAG:ASX) (FRA:P6C) covering 199 square kilometres of exploration tenure in the Victorian goldfields of Australia. 

Mawson Gold CEO Michael Hudson said: “The Whroo JV adds another significant epizonal goldfield to join our Redcastle and Sunday Creek interests and increases our Victorian portfolio by 73% to 471 square kilometres. The Whroo historic goldfield extends over 9 kilometres, and was mined during the mid-1800s to early 1900s with minimal modern-day exploration.”

He added: “Little or no exploration has been undertaken on the large 199-square kilometre land package that the Whroo JV provides. Given the exploration success at Fosterville, we now understand that epizonal systems can develop extremely high-grade zones at depth. We look forward to rapidly unravelling the geological opportunity at Whroo by undertaking geophysics to determine structural controls and early diamond drilling.”

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According to the company, Whroo consists of the Balaclava Hill area which contains 13 named reefs, while shallow workings extend the trend over 9 kilometres to the White Hills mining area. Production at Whroo is estimated to be 40,000 ounces of gold. At White Hills, 21 historic hard-rock gold showings and mines occur within a larger alluvial goldfield.

Since historic mining took place, modern exploration at Whroo has been relatively limited. In early 2017, Nagambie’s geological consultant, Geoff Turner, began to articulate his intersecting-faults concept for the Waranga Domain. He had recognized that the known gold deposits at the Nagambie Mine, Wandean discovery, Whroo and White Hills and several gold anomalies, including Nagambie’s Reedy Lake soil anomaly that falls within the Whroo JV area, are all at or near to the intersections of “gravity-inferred deep crustal faults and aeromagnetic-inferred or visually-outcropping nearer-surface thrust faults.”

Here are the key terms of the amended deal:

• The Whroo JV substantially expands the area under option from that contained in the original agreement from 4 square kilometres to 199-square kilometres of mineral tenure;
• Mawson’s area under tenure and option in the Victorian Goldfields now increases by 73%;
• The Whroo JV covers the 9-kilometre long Whroo goldfield mineralized trend containing both the White Hills and Balaclava Hill mining areas, one of the most significant historic epizonal goldfields in Victoria;
• Mawson has the option to earn up to a 70% joint venture interest in the optioned property by incurring exploration expenditures of $4 million over six years and making cash payments of $250,000 over four years; and
• Mawson now holds interests in three significant epizonal historic goldfields (Sunday Creek, Redcastle and Whroo) within 471 square kilometres of granted tenements and applications in Victoria

Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at [email protected]

Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive

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