John Bull Gold Project

The John Bull Gold Project is located east of Glen Innes in northern New South Wales within the New England Orogen.

The Historical John Bull gold workings contain approximately seven historical shafts sunk in the mid 1880’s when gold was first discovered in the area, the primary shaft is named, the John Bull shaft. Sluicing of free surface gold was conducted at the project over two significant large areas in the mid 1940’s. A follow up to the two historical mining activities, in the 1980’s a historic surface trench (Kennecott & Southern Goldfields Ltd - 1980’s) returned: 160m @ 1.2 g/t Au, with impressive higher-grade intervals including 5m @ 18.0 g/t Au and 5m @ 7.1 g/t Au).

The maiden Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling campaign completed by the Company mid-August 2022 was the first ever drilling of any form, testing for bed-rock gold mineralisation at depth below the number of historical workings. The inaugural RC drilling program consisted of seven RC holes drilled for a total of 887 metres. JBRC001 intersected 68m @ 1.0 g/t Au from surface that included 23m @ 2.02 g/t Au and 94m @ 0.95 g/t Au including 66m @ 1.14 g/t Au from 32m (JBRC007).

Figure 1: Discovery RC drill line completed at the John Bull Project in 2022.

Project Highlights Include:

  • Surface trench contains a mineralised interval of 160m @ 1.2 g/t Au (1980).
  • JBRC001 68m @ 1.0 g/t Au from surface including 23m @ 2.02 g/t Au.
  • JBRC002 94m @ 0.95 g/t Au including 66m @ 1.14 g/t Au from 32m.
  • Soils samples up to 10 g/t Au.
  • Rock chips up to 67.9 g/t Au, 29g/t Au & 12 g/t Ag.
  • North Area - 1,000m x 250m 100ppb Au soils anomaly (open to the north).
  • South Area - 250m x 150m 100ppb Au soils anomaly.
  • John Bull may represent an orogenic gold system or an Intrusive Gold Related System with scale and large tonnage potential from surface.
  • Fine free gold, ideal for gravity and separation processing and ease of transportation for refining.

Figure 2: John Bull Location NSW.

Historic gold workings at the John Bull Project consist of several shallow shafts sunk in the 1870’s and two later, large areas of surface gold sluicing (Figure 3). Creeks below the colluvial workings have also been worked for alluvial gold. These historic gold workings occur in a sequence of Carboniferous-Permian greywacke and siltstone intruded by small intermediate sub-volcanic trachyte to micro-monzonite of likely Permian or Triassic age. Sheeted and stockwork quartz veining is widespread over the area of the sluiced colluvial workings, with veins dipping generally eastward. Sulphides identified previously associated with veining consist almost entirely of pyrite - arsenopyrite ± pyrrhotite.

Figure 3: John Bull stage 1 and stage 2 gold in soils geochemistry anomaly.

The last significant exploration activity was carried out between 1983 to 1985 by Kennecott Exploration (Australia) and Southern Goldfields Ltd. Activity included a 220m long backhoe dug trench into weathered quartz veined bedrock across the main (northern) area of alluvial gold sluicing. The trench averaged 1.2 g/t Au across the interval 0 - 160m (with 5m composite assay intervals ranging up to 18.0 g/t and 7.1 g/t Au; (refer to ASX announcement 16th May 2022).

Several features of the geology and mineralisation at the Joh Bull Project, including the presence of sheeted and stockwork quartz veins with associated sulphides support the Company’s interpretation for a possible Orogenic Gold System model and or an Intrusion Related Gold System supported by peak multi-element results across the sample set include 2.5% As, 2.7 ppm Ag, 1.11 ppm Bi, 30 ppm Sb, and 22 ppm W at John Bull. Drilling intersected varying amounts of quartz veining between 1 to 40% and has been logged over wide intervals in each of the seven holes accompanied by varying amounts of disseminated pyrite. A sequence of fine to medium grained, carbon rich sedimentary rocks (shale - siltstone - sandstone) with thin, <1m thick, dolerite and/or diorite dykes also intersected in holes JBRC001, JBRC002, JBRC004, JBRC005, JBRC006 & JBRC007.

The Hillgrove Gold/Antimony Mine has a Mineral Resource Estimate of 1.7Moz gold equivalent (AuEq) @ 7.4 g/t AuEq, (Larvotto Resources ASX: LRV) is the closet mine under development heading into production near Armidale in the New England region of NSW, located approximately 2 hours’ drive southwest of John Bull.

A third stage drill permit has been lodged for the Company to deliver a maiden JORC Resource estimate.