Recent News
Some Highlights for recent exploration:
- Grades up to 44 g/t Au (grams per tonne gold) returned from NE Workings from stream sediments.
- Grades up to 11.9 g/t Au reported from rockchips at NE Working.
- Magnetic linears indicate that the gold bearing Sunday School structure extends to the east. Just outside Wishbone’s EPM, Terra Search reports that Sunday School contains grades of up to 8.3 g/t Au and 87 g/t silver.
- Edwards South reported rockchips up to 1.2 g/t Au from breccia zones.
- Edwards South is estimated to have 1km – 2km strike potential.
- Grades up to 15.82% Copper (Cu) and 4.7 g/t Au reported at Clements Copper.
- Brady’s Jubilation showed anomalous gold in the 62 ppb Au, and silver in the 1-2 ppm Ag range.
Historical Deposits
White Mountain is centred over a highly favourable area of the Lolworth region and includes several polymetallic historic mines and advanced prospects for gold, silver, copper, lead, antimony, nickel, and molybdenum, all of which have been the subject of intermittent exploration over the past 40 years. Major historical production to date is as follows:
- The Diecon Mine (1910- 1916) produced 68 tonnes of ore for 17,400g (614oz) gold at 255.9 g/t.
- Edwards Mine (1915) produced 310 tonnes of antimony ore.
- Little Wonder Mine (1913 -1915) produced 17 tonnes of ore for 669g (24oz) at 29.4g/t.
- Sunday School Mine (1914) produced five tonnes of ore for 268g (10oz) gold at 53.6 g/t.
- Bradley’s Jubilation and Clements Copper were copper prospects and the Northeast Workings a gold prospect.
Location and Infrastructure
White Mountain is located west-southwest of Townsville, Queensland approximately 300km via the Flinders Highway. It is accessed at various locations from the northern side of the main highway and covers an area of about 4,800 hectares (18.5sq miles).
Supporting transport infrastructure is available in Charters Towers, which acts as the hub for exploration in the general area, about 180km to the east via the Flinders Highway. The Mt. Isa to Townsville Railway runs parallel to the Flinders Highway heading east to Charters Towers and Townsville and west to Cloncurry and Mt. Isa. This railroad carries mined ore and concentrates from the Mt. Isa Mines, and more recently from mines in the Cloncurry area to Townsville.
An outcrop sample from the general area of the Jubilation workings. Mr. Campbell of I2M Associates, LL is in the foreground and Dr. Beams of Terra Search Pty Ltd. in the background.
Extracts from CPR
“After reviewing the historical mining and mineral exploration activities and associated company reports dealing with the known mineralisation within and to the west of the tenement area, we have concluded that the White Mountain tenement has substantial potential for mineralisation of potential economic importance.”
“…a few of the companies did conduct detailed surface sampling, some of which produced favourable results.”
Previous Exploration
A number of companies have been active in the general area. The first group consisted of the early miners of the 1800s and early to mid-1900s. The early explorers identified areas that remain of particular interest to present day exploration companies. These efforts were based on surface sampling and drilling to limited depths. Given the recent revival of gold prices many prospects are now being revisited.
The significance of the historical workings and recent exploration activities adjacent to White Mountain is that recognised shear zones in granite appear to be trending into the White Mountain EPM, especially in the southwest areas. This indicates the shear zones that occur in White Mountain are primary targets for follow-up exploration. The adjacent property reportedly hosts a JORC-compliant resource of 79,000oz of gold and 1.5m oz of silver located wholly within a 600m portion of a single, mineralised shear zone. The suggested target below the resource identified to date is projected by others to be about 350,000 tonnes amounting to more than one million oz gold and 21 million oz of silver or, assuming current precious metals prices, more than US$2bn in place, should such mineralisation be confirmed during drilling.
This suggests that the White Mountain EPM offers favourable conditions for significant mineralisation of not only gold and silver, but also for other metals as well. Although the adjacent property to the west reported lead and zinc in addition to the gold and silver, White Mountain also appears to offer multi-metal targets involving sulphide mineralisation. These include antimony, copper, nickel, molybdenum, lead, zinc, and other metals, in addition to quartz-zone mineralisation associated with shear zones trending into White Mountain tenement from the west.
Those sites already known such as at Thalanga and West 45 Mines, about 60km southeast of White Mountain, and others cited in the CPR have since been investigated in greater detail. Discoveries in the Thalanga area were made as a result of the application of standard exploration techniques, such as surface reconnaissance, geological mapping, rock and soil sampling and various methods of aerial and ground geophysics followed by deep bedrock drilling and coring. With the recent advances in geophysics, especially ground magnetics systems, complemented by new satellite imagery and combined with new and revised models of mineralisation, and based on nearby activities, the Board has elected to acquire and vigorously explore White Mountain.
Exploration Strategy
The Board of Wishbone Gold has identified the gold and precious metals exploration and development sector as an attractive investment opportunity, and one which has the potential to create rapid and sustainable growth for shareholders. In addition to Wishbone Gold’s existing projects, the Board is constantly reviewing and evaluating precious metals projects around the world.
Queensland, Australia is of particular interest to Wishbone Gold due to the considerable exploration data and information previously collected by major and junior mining companies since the 1960s. The Board see this as a critical resource which can be reworked by taking advantage of recent technological advances, to provide new exploration targets.
Exploration at the White Mountain site to date has highlighted the effective application of ground magnetic modelling in this dominantly intrusive outcropping area and promotes its’ future use throughout the remaining prospective areas of the tenement. Prior to 2019 exploration work included a Competent Persons Report (CPR); helicopter assisted reconnaissance; compilation of historic open file data; geophysical dataset processing and interpretation. Major field work undertaken in previous years included an extensive ground magnetics survey of 9 km2, geological prospecting, mapping and rock chip , soil, stream sediment sampling over several target areas (Edwards, Edwards South, The Diecon, Brady’s Jubilation.
Trench evaluation of the Clements Copper Mine, Edwards Corridor, and NE Workings prospect areas to help confirm grade-thickness, geological significance and structural orientation of the anomalous zones prior to drill testing.
Recent News Releases on Project
| Title | Date | Categories | Link | doc_categories_hfilter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wishbone Gold at Shares Spotlight | June 24, 2021 | Media, News | media news | |
| Excellent Initial Results of Exploration at White Mountains | November 30, 2020 | News | news | |
| Drilling approved for Wishbone’s High-Grade Australian Gold Assets | September 7, 2020 | News | news | |
| Funding Raised to Expand Exploration Program onto White Mountains | August 20, 2020 | News | news | |
| Annual Report EPM 18393 White Mountains | May 1, 2017 | Exploration-Reports | exploration-reports | |
| Results of Recent Exploration | November 1, 2015 | Exploration-Reports | exploration-reports | |
| Activities within and around Wishbone Gold’s White Mountain Property confirms potential | December 18, 2014 | News | news | |
| Positive Exploration Update on White Mountain Project | September 4, 2013 | News | news | |
| Positive Update on Wishbone II and White Mountain Gold Projects | September 24, 2012 | News | news | |
| Rationale EPM 18393 White Mountains | October 1, 2009 | Exploration-Reports | exploration-reports |