Astute holds an 80% interest in the Georgina Basin IOCG Project, located in the highly prospective East Tennant Mineral Province of the Northern Territory, with the right to increase to 100%.
The Georgina Project comprises ten granted Exploration Licences, and three under application, for a combined total of 4,522km2.
The Georgina Project has seen an intense level of investment in exploration over the past 18 months, with previous owner, Greenvale Mining, spending over $2.6 million on exploration and an additional $80k contributed by the Northern Territory Geological Survey (NTGS) as part of two successful co-funded geophysical projects under the Resourcing the Territory initiative.
Exploration work completed by previous owners includes desktop studies, geophysical surveying, target generation, surface sampling and drill testing.
This work has generated an outstanding pipeline of targets, with drill-ready targets including the Banks and Leichhardt prospects. Both targets are characterised by coincident magnetic and gravity anomalies, proximity to regional-scale faults, felsic intrusive rocks and near to observed copper mineralisation.
In April 2023, the Company received initial assay results from a deep diamond drill-hole completed at the Leichhardt East Prospect last year, with the results demonstrating the presence of copper mineralisation associated with ironstones, as well as significant anomalism in the key pathfinder metals known to be associated with large-scale IOCG deposits, including strong uranium mineralisation in a number of samples. Once the Company has received the outstanding data from its magnetic remanence test work and petrographical thin section observations, a holistic review of the whole Central Tenement area will be undertaken. This will include a broader review of elevated magnetic and gravity responses interpreted to be prospective for IOCG style mineralisation, supported by the rock types, alteration and geochemistry results received for drill-holes completed to date.
