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DIGGERS & DEALERS PREVIEW

Meteoric overcomes

data dilemma

by Michael Washbourne

Meteoric has started drilling at its newly acquired Palm Springs
eteoric Resources Ltd managing director Andrew Tunks gold project in WA’s Kimberley region
Mhad a very important task for his geology team during the
initial stages of the COVID-19 lockdown.
g/t from 56m and 50m @ 3.1 g/t from 50m – below the pit.
With the company looking to beef up its portfolio of Brazil-
Another hit of 73m @ 2.26 g/t from 169m was also recorded
focused projects with an Australian asset, Tunks assigned
just 100m south of Butchers Creek.
the homebound geologists up to 20 paper sections from
historic drilling on a prospective project. Each result was to The project also includes the Golden Crown deposit which was
be converted into digital form so the Meteoric board could the first resource ever defined by Northern Star Resources
appropriately assess the merits of the acquisition opportunity. Ltd back in 2007. Meteoric is expected to follow up on this
prospect in next year’s drilling efforts.
It proved to be time well spent as the board ultimately
approved the proposed move on the Palm Springs gold In a strange case of serendipity, Meteoric initially ran the
project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. ruler over Palm Springs in early 2019 at the same time it was
considering – and ultimately acquiring – both the Juruena and
“A lot of people have looked at this and they all struggled with
Novo Astro gold-copper projects in Brazil.
the data,” Tunks told GMJ.
“We liked the look of it and we had a little dabble with it at that
“The biggest issue is that there is simply no digital data, it’s
time, but then Brazil caught our eye and we just didn’t have
all on old paper logs, so it’s a really hard one to evaluate.
the bandwidth back then to do both,” Tunks said.
Historically you can see there’s some really interesting
stuff there. And it’s also in rocks that I personally know well “So, we went with Brazil and we don’t regret that decision at
because my PhD area is not far away.” all. But when this one came up again, it was still available, so
we had another look and thought it was too tantalising this
Meteoric acquired Palm Springs from Horrocks Enterprises
time around to say no.”
Pty Ltd and Kimberly Resources Ltd for $1 million – $750,000
cash and 12.5 million shares – in June and drilled its first hole Meteoric’s maiden drilling programme at Palm Springs will
into the project in late August. comprise about 6,500m (5,000m RC and 1,500m diamond)
targeting high-grade ore zones under and to the south of the
The Palm Springs licence covers more than 12,000ha and
Butchers Creek pit.
contains more than 60 known gold occurrences over a 20km
strike. A key feature of the project is the historic Butchers Experienced geologist Tony Cormack is overseeing the
Creek open pit which produced 52,000oz @ 2.1 g/t gold programme.
during the late 1990s. “What we’re trying to do with our first programme is go back
Previous explorers also reported several high-grade and replicate some of the old drilling and statistically compare
intercepts – including 68m @ 2.5 g/t from 44m, 19m @ 8.8 it,” Tunks said.

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