Peel Fault

Target: Gold
Tenements: EL6618 (Upper Hunter), EL6620 (Weabonga), EL6648 (Crow King), EL2805 (Trilby), EL2806 (Bingara), EL2807 (Baldwin), EL2827 (Niangala)

Location: Upper Hunter through western New England area.

Background:

The Peel Fault is a crustal-scale feature best described as a greenstone belt of Palaeozoic age, developed on a fault that from seismic evidence extends down through the Earth's crust to the underlying mantle. The belt is up to 9km wide and extends for over two hundred kilometres in a north south direction. Icon initially took up its licences along the Peel to look for gold and in many respects, the Peel Fault is an analogue of the famous Mother Lode in California, which produced over 114 million ounces of gold from various types of deposits. Gold mining first commenced along the Peel in the late 1880's and alluvial and hard rock mining have continued spasmodically on a small scale until the present.

Resource:

Icon's exploration on the Peel Fault is most advanced in the Crow King tenement where potential exists for bulk tonnage and high grade gold deposits. Historic mining at Crow King commenced in the 1880's and produced small quantities of gold from high grade veins. The prospect is on a “jog” or structural bend on the Peel Fault. Work completed at Crow King includes detailed geological mapping, extensive portable XRF (‘Niton’) & conventional soil geochemical surveys, rock-chip sampling, petrology and 3D IP chargeability and resistivity surveys.

As Icon's exploration has progressed, evidence is mounting for the presence of ultramafic complexes in structurally favourable zones along the Peel, and we now consider that the potential also exists for nickel copper mineralisation formed in association with layered ultramafic intrusions.

Geology/Geophysics:

Within the Crow King tenement (EL6648) the detailed geological mapping has confirmed extensive zones of ‘listwanite’ (carbonate-quartz-fuchsite-sericite-sulphide) altered ultramafic rocks (listwanite alteration is commonly associated with economic gold mineralisation in other greenstone belts).

Icon's soil and rock-chip geochemical surveys have defined strong gold-arsenic-antimony-mercury anomalies coincident with the alteration. Detailed 3D IP surveys completed in 2008 defined a number of chargeability and resistivity anomalies at depth, also associated with the listwanite altered rocks anomalous in gold and/or historic gold occurrences. The chargeability anomalies are considered to represent disseminated sulphide associated with these gold-bearing alteration systems.

Forward Program:

The Peel Fault is essentially unexplored by modern exploration techniques. Only 12 RC and 4 diamond core holes have ever been drilled in the search for gold in the 100km of Peel Fault exposure north of Manilla. The best intersection was at Crow King where an 1980 RC drill hole intersected 6m at 4.9ppm gold from 49m. This result was never followed up.

Drilling is planned at these prospects and will commence at Magnesite Hill. At the surface the Magnesite Hill prospect is characterized by a large (>1,000m x 100m) gold-arsenic-antimony-mercury soil geochemical (>50ppb Au) associated with quartz veined and listwanite altered ultramafic rocks. The drilling will test the large IP chargeability anomaly beneath these surface geochemical anomalies.