Western Australia School of Mines

Department of Applied Geology

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Student Name : Nur Anbiyak

Student ID : 18475939
Unit Name : GEOL5016 Regolith Geology & Mineral Exploration
Assignment : Professional Report: Exploration Under Cover
Lecturers Name : Mehrooz Aspandiar
rd
Due Date : Sunday 23 October 2016
rd
Date Submitted : Sunday 23 October 2016

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work and has not been submitted for assessment in another unit or course. I have given appropriate references
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blocks of text have been taken from other sources.

I have retained a copy of the assignment for my own records.

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 FLYING FISH MINERALS

MINERAL EXPLORATION UNDER COVER

USING REGOLITH & BASEMENT
GEOCHEMISTRY
IN SMOKED TUNA PROJECT

2016
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................. i
TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................................. ii
REGOLITH AND GEOLOGY OF SMOKED TUNA PROJECT.............................................1
Geological Setting.................................................................................................... 1
Regolith Units........................................................................................................... 1
GEOCHEMICAL ANOMALIES AND QAQC......................................................................1
METAL DISPERSION MECHANISM................................................................................2
LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION............................................................................................ 3
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................. 3

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 REGOLITH AND GEOLOGY OF SMOKED TUNA PROJECT

Geological Setting
The Smoked Tuna Project is located in Rason Lake region, Western Australia. The area is
characterized as semi-arid environment with average rainfall between 150 mm and 180 mm
annually. According to (Gower & Boegli, 1977) the geology of the area is classified into three
main lithology units, Archean greenstones belt and granitic rocks, Proterozoic sedimentary
rocks, and Cenozoic weathering products. The greenstones belt is formed by sequence of
mafic-felsic intrusive and extrusive rocks. It is intruded by felsic plutonic rocks with composition
varied from quartz diorite to granite. The Archean basement rocks is unconformably overlain by
Permian sedimentary rocks which is part of Paterson Formation. This series consist of clastic
sedimentary rocks with size ranging from clay to cobble. The Cenozoic rocks is the weathering
product of older rocks and overlain by unconsolidated sand dunes.

Major linear feature in the area predominantly has northwest trend with minor east and
northeast lineaments. The northwest lineaments are associated with mafic dykes intrusion and
correspond with linear anomalies of magnetic intensity map.

Regolith Units
The geology and regolith of the project area are described based on six RC drilling chip
samples in the area (YKJC 664-YKJC 670). The regolith unit in the area is divided into six
stratigraphy units which has different physical signatures and mineral composition, bedrock
(fresh rock), saprock, saprolite, mottled zone, ferricrete, and sand dunes. However, sand dunes
and mottled zone are not occur in all of the drillholes.
1. Bedrock (AbFr)
All of drillholes intersected Archean basaltic bedrock in the area. It has dark green-black
color and predominantly consist of pyroxene, amphibole and chlorite. In the hole YKJC 668
and and YKJC 669 it is containing quartz vein that cut the bedrock.
2. Saprock (AbSrk)
AbSrk unit is developed above the bedrock where it is slightly weathered but still
maintained majority of the crystalline texture of basaltic rocks. Serpentine mineral occurs in
the unit as the result of mafic minerals weathering process.
3. Saprolite
The saprolite unit is divided into two main units, Archean basalt saprolite (AbSlt) and
Permian sedimentary saprolite (PsstSlt) which the latter is overlies unconformably the
former unit. According to mineral content, AbSlt can be classified into two separate unit,
smectite layer and kaolinite layer. The smectite layer positioned below kaolinite layer and
indicated occurrence of smectite minerals while the kaolinite layer is dominated by kaolinite
mineral.

The PsstSlt unit is comprises of clastic sedimentary rocks which shows of cycle sequence
in the terms of its grain size. The coarser grain (sand-conglomerate) positioned at the base
of the unit above AbSlt unit and gradually the grain size decreases in upward direction into

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 sandstones and then mudstone. It is later covered by coarser grain sedimentary rocks
which also shows similar graded bedding structure.
4. Mottled zone (PCzMz)
The PCzMz is formed by combination of iron oxide minerals and kaolinite. Because ot its
mineral content, the unit is identified by its red and white color. However, in YKJC 669 hole,
this unit is not developed and the PsstSlt unit is directly covered by ferricrete
5. Ferricrete
6. Sand dunes

GEOCHEMICAL ANOMALIES AND QAQC

A total of six RC drill holes (630 m) were completed within the project with depth varied between
78 m - 108 m. RC drill holes were drilled with 200 m spacing along east west direction. All of
the RC holes were sampled at two meter intervals and each sample was collected into RC chip
boxes. Composite of 4 m sample intervals were analysed for 8 elements (Au, As, Bi, Cu, Fe, Sb,
W, and Zn).

Duplicate samples were available for five drill holes except for YKJC 668 and Half Absolute
Relative Difference (HARD method is applied to assess the precision of the duplicates.
However, HARD calculation only conducted for original and duplicate samples which value are
10 times higher than each element detection limits. Based Table 1 below, Au HARD values are
within 7.14%, therefore within acceptable QAQC limit. In addition, HARD values for As, Cu, and
Zn also within accepted limit (< 10%). As, Cu, and Zn are chosen among other pathfinder
elements because they are show anomalous pattern that associated with gold anomaly from the
drill holes.

Hole Au As Cu Zn
YKJC664
(1) 3.33% 1.72%
YKJC665
(2) 1.08% 2.94% 2.22% 0.50%
YKJC666
(3) 7.14% 4.84% 1.26% 1.00%
YKJC667
(4) 2.63% 1.80% 4.17%
YKJC669
(5) 3.33%
YKJC670
(6) 1.88% 1.52%
Table 1 HARD calculation result

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 HARD Scatter Plot
6.00%

5.00%

4.00% Au
As
HARD 3.00%
Cu
2.00% Zn
1.00%

0.00%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Drill Holes

Fig 1 HARD value distribution

The assay data for all of the drill holes are plotted using Micromine 2014 to create drill holes
section (Appendix). According to the section, basalt fresh rock shows Zn, As, and low Cu
anomalies. However, the Au value is not elevated in this rock unit. The Archean basalt saprolite
(AbSlt) unit shows gold anomaly in all of the drill holes and the kaolinite layer of AbSlt has the
strongest gold anomaly. The highest gold intersection is from YKJC 665 hole that intersected 12
m of AbSlt with average gold grade at 0.54 g/t from 52 m including 4 m @ 0.925 g/t from 52 m.

METAL DISPERSION MECHANISM

LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION

RECOMMENDATIONS

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REFERENCES
APPENDIX