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Aug 2010 - Floating Quartz

Current Trends Include “Floating” Quartz Rocks.

We have noticed a number of trends (being at least 3 occurrences) among the different companies that we have analysed so far this year since January 2010. Those trends mostly include cyclone upgrades, proposed ventilation shafts, possible drill drives and significantly deeper drilling, EM plates, visible gold, stamp batteries, plant upgrades and newly commissioned plants, and fields of quartz resulting from “floating” quartz rocks.

The first example of “floating” quartz rocks producing fields of quartz that we/ERA saw this year was at Silver Lake’s (SLR’s) Murchison Project near Cue in WA. The field of quartz results from monsoonal-type rain washing over a plain, such that the vast volume of water causes the quartz rocks (usually from major shear zones) to “float”, and spread out forming a field of quartz blanketing (and hence masking) almost everything as shown in Figure 1a.

SLR has found that geophysics produces the best results for them in delineating EM plates beneath the cover, that have been drilled with successful results. We also saw fields of quartz at SLR’s new North Monger (Wombola) acquisition, and more recently at Focus Minerals’ (FML’s) Treasure Island in the currently dry salt lake of Lake Cowan, NE of Higginsville in WA. There are a number of significantly thick north-south striking quartz veins that cross the island and the lake, between the NNW/SSE striking Boulder Lefroy and Playa shear zones on either side of the island.

FML intends to fly aeromag and conduct surface geochem to follow up on the surface mapped veins and palaeochannels in its Lake Cowan prospect, and then establish drill targets.

Disclosure and Disclaimer: This article has been written by Keith Goode, the Managing Director of Eagle Research Advisory Pty Ltd, (an independent research company) who is a Financial Services Representative with Taylor Collison Ltd, and with his associates, may hold interests in some of the stocks mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article should not be taken as investment advice, but are based on observations by the author. The author does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information and is not liable for any loss or damage suffered through any reliance on its contents.

Figure 1. Silver Lake’s Murchison field of quartz, and VG from Silver Lake, McPherson’s & FocusGDNaug10

  • Written by: Keith Goode
  • Sunday, 01 August 2010