Alice River Gold Project
The Alice River Gold Project comprises 30km of prospective gold targets within 377km2 of granted exploration permits and mining leases.
It is set within a large intrusion-related gold system in North Queensland with similarities to that seen at the Fort Knox deposit in the USA and the Hemi deposit in Western Australia.
The Alice River Gold Project comprises a regional-scale intrusion-related gold system in far North Queensland. Prior to Pacgold’s acquisition of the project in December 2020, there was little modern exploration undertaken, despite the presence of a number of historical gold mines in the region.
Exploration by Pacgold has defined anomalous gold mineralisation hosted by a major regional-scale structure over an interpreted strike of 30km. To date, less than 5% of this structure has been tested, with over 90% covered by a thin sand cover.
Over 95% of the project is covered with recent sand and sediments, concealing the prospective structure.
Regional IP electrical geophysics combined with shallow geochemical aircore drilling has enabled Pacgold to define in excess of 20 regional gold prospects dominantly concealed by transported cover along the host structure.
The focus for the Company in 2025 is to investigate all regional prospects for the potential to host gold resources. This includes the high priority Central and Southern Targets where drilling from 2021 to 2024 has defined coherent high grade gold mineralisation extending several hundred metres vertical depth from surface, and there is clear potential to define robust Mineral Resources.
The Central Target is focused on the historical open pit mine area, with high grade gold mineralisation defined along strike and down-dip of the pit, and open in all directions. Drilling continues to define extensions to the high-grade shoots.
The Southern Target is a structural repetition of the Central Target, with first pass drilling by Pacgold confirming high grade gold mineralisation open at depth and along strike from historical small-scale mine workings. Recent drilling in 2024 has provided indications of broad widths of strong gold mineralisation.
In December 2024, Pacgold completed a 749 hole Aircore drill programme, focussed on unlocking the size potential of the overall mineralised system and generating multiple follow up drill targets for the 2025 exploration season, results confirmed evidence of a large gold system:
Southern Target
The aircore drilling results from the Victoria Prospect in the Southern Target area defined a significant continuous geochemical Au-As-Sb anomaly over an interpreted strike length of almost 6km. The geochemical anomaly is coexistent with the Alice River Fault Zone (ARFZ) as defined by IP Resistivity geophysics and is a clear south-easterly extension to the outcropping quartz-vein hosted gold mineralisation on the Southern Target Mining Leases, mined by prospectors in the early 1900’s.
The Victoria Prospect area displays very little basement outcrop and is characterised by extensive granite-derived surface sands up to 1m thick, overlying a thin (1 to 3m) sandstone cover unit. The Au-As-Sb geochemical anomalism is generated from concealed weathered to semi-fresh granite and dolerite basement containing visible hydrothermal alteration and quartz veining similar in nature to that observed at the Northern, Central and Southern Targets.
Significant higher grade gold anomalism was intersected in a number of aircore drillholes, including hole ARAC480 – 10m @ 0.16g/t Au from 5m downhole including 1m @ 0.58g/t Au from 5m, and ARAC563 – 10m @ 0.29g/t Au from 11m downhole, including 1m @ 1.51g/t Au from 20m (end of hole at 21m).
Northern Target
Aircore drilling by Pacgold in 2024 defined two significant geochemical anomalies to date at the Northern Target. ‘The Shadows’ Prospect is a consistent linear zone of Au-As-Sb anomalism with an interpreted strike length in excess of 1.4km and up to 250m wide, and open to the north and south. The most southerly drill section with assay results on The Shadows reports the highest grades and thickest widths of alteration and Au-As-Sb mineralisation associated with zones of quartz veining.
The ‘Atlantis’ Prospect is located 300m to the west of The Shadows and is a gold anomaly defined by 5 aircore holes, including 2 holes with greater than 1g/t Au intersections. Atlantis is interpreted at this point to be parallel to The Shadows and is located on a marked inflection on the western margin of the IP Resistivity low corridor (Alice River Fault Zone), interpreted to be spatially related to intrusive mafic units.
Follow up RC drilling at The Shadows was undertaken in late 2024, with six holes completed. All drillholes returned variable levels of quartz veining hosted by intensely altered granodiorite, similar in nature to that observed at both the Central and Southern Targets, and five of the six holes returned gold intersections.
Drillholes SHDH003 and 005 defined a robust and coherent vein stockwork quartz vein system dipping steeply west and hosted within the main ARFZ as defined by the IP low resistivity, with results including SHDH005: 8m @ 0.6gt Au from 11m including 2m @ 1.4g/t Au from 12m, and SHDH003: 23m @ 0.3g/t Au from 80m.
Central Target
In parallel, the company completed a 24 hole RC drill programme, drilling priority holes in the Central Target area to test extensions of known mineralisation. Initial results included:
F1a – RC drillhole ARDH091 intersected 10m @ 1.7g/t Au from 60m and a second new zone of 11m @ 1.5g/t Au from 126m downhole within a broader zone of 88m @ 0.6g/t Au Alice River has demonstrated the potential to host a bulk tonnage continuous system within the 30km of known strike discovered to date.
The Alice River project remains underexplored with limited drilling completed to date into the multitude of targets now developed through the extensive aircore programme competed in late 2024, 2025 will be a crucial year in understanding the potential of the Alice River system with a full exploration season commencing in April.
In 2025, the Company intends to infill zones within the Central, Northern and Southern Targets ahead of a mineral resource estimate, whilst at the same time, progressing the highly prospective regional targets.