Queenstown Projects Area
Corona Gold Ltd’s (“Corona”) Queenstown Project Area is situated in and around Queenstown, on the west coast of Tasmania, and is host to 30km strike of the world class, deposits-hosting mid-late Cambrian Mount Read Volcanics (“MRV”). The project consists of three contiguous tenements covering a total area
of 206 km2 within which are a number of prospect areas and targets which will be discussed individually.
The MRV form an arcuate belt of predominately rhyolite-dacite volcanics, volcaniclastics and epiclastics, roughly 200km long on the west coast of Tasmania. The MRV are host to several world class Volcanic Hosted Massive Sulphide (VHMS) deposits, and deposits associated with VHMS deposits in terms of both tonnage and grade. The largest of these is the Mt Lyell copper-gold mine which has produced ~311 Mt @ 1% Cu, 0.3 g/t Au, and which is situated 1.7km from Corona’s tenement holding.
Corona is targeting disseminated volcanogenic Cu-Au-Ag mineralisation and VHMS Pb-Zn-Cu-Ag-Au mineralisation similar to that seen within the Mt Lyell District. In addition to this, Corona plans to test other potential mineralisation models within the Queenstown Project Area including intrusion related copper-gold, epithermal gold, orogenic gold, Irish Style, shale hosted Zn-Pb-Ag mineralisation and carbonate hosted Zn-Pb-Ag mineralisation.
Geology Overview
Regionally, the Queenstown Project Area covers the southern part of the Late Cambrian Mt Read Volcanics. The MRV is subdivided into three main units; the Central volcanic complex (CVC) composed predominantly of rhyolitic and dacitic volcanic successions, the Western Sequence (WS) which is composed predominantly of rhyolitic and dacitic volcaniclastic rocks and epiclastic successions and the Tyndall Group (TG) which is composed predominantly of rhyolitic volcaniclastic and epiclastic rocks. The contact between the CVC and the Tyndall Group is considered to be a prospective horizon for the development of mineralisation throughout the MRV.
Principal Prospect Groups
Corona has targeted certain prospect areas which will be discussed in detail based upon a mixture of positive historical exploration, reinterpretation of historical data and new ideas from the Corona technical team.
136 historical workings are reported to exist within the Queenstown Project Area (source Mineral Resources Tasmania).
The workings were principally prospected for copper and gold around the time the Mt Lyell mine was discovered, near the turn of the 19th century, however, silver, lead, zinc, barite and iron-oxide have all been recorded from workings within the tenure.
In addition to this, numerous geophysical and geochemical targets exist that were generated by previous explorers. Geological dogma has often been the cause for many targets remaining untested, despite “ticking all the boxes” otherwise (eg coincident geophysical and geochemical targets).
