Ravensthorpe Project
3. RAVENSTHORPE NICKEL COPPER GOLD PROJECT
3.1 LOCATION AND ACCESS
The Ravensthorpe Project is located east and northeast of the town of Ravensthorpe, near the south coast of Western Australia. The Oldfield area is located 17 kilometres north of the sealed South Coastal Highway 50 kilometres east of Ravensthorpe. A network of good quality gravel roads through mainly cleared farmland provides easy access to most of the project area. A track used for vermin control and as a fire break provides access in the northern leases. Existing cleared grid lines provide acceptable access to most of the area of interest north of Oldfield prospect.
3.2 TENURE
The Ravensthorpe Project comprises a mostly contiguous area of approximately 500 square kilometres. Athena is the registered owner.
3.3 PROJECT GEOLOGY AND MINERALISATION
Athena?s Ravensthorpe Project area is largely covered by a thin veneer of barren, windblown quartz sand over moderately weathered granite and outcrops. Thick scrub in the northern part of the project hindered previous exploration. However, modern exploration using geophysics and remote sensing has revealed extensive outcropping mafic and ultramafic rocks in an area depicted on Government geological maps as mainly granitic and gneissic terrain.
Athena discovered extensive outcrops of olivine-rich cumulate textured ultramafic rocks during field investigation of aeromagnetic anomalies in 2005. These newly discovered ultramafic and mafic rocks are believed to be Proterozoic in age and appear to form part of a differentiated dyke swam that ranges in composition from ultramafic to anorthosite. Athena is targeting nickel sulphide mineralisation hosted in these dykes. Nickel sulphide mineralisation was interested in an ultramafic body at Oldfield in drilling by Athena providing confirmation of the validity of the exploration model. Further evidence of magmatic sulphide mineralisation in these dykes is found on Athena?s tenements where disseminated pentlandite and pyrrhotite have been found in outcrop during reconnaissance mapping.
Outcropping nickel laterite mineralisation at Oldfield and possibly the deeper sulphide mineralisation may extend under soil cover onto tenements held wholly by Athena. Mapping and interpretation of the aeromagnetic data and satellite imagery indicates that the ultramafic body hosting the Oldfield mineralisation extends north, east and west into Athena?s surrounding tenements.
3.4 WORK COMPLETED BY ATHENA
100% Athena Tenements
A high resolution digital terrain model and digital ortho-photography was delivered to Athena and used to design a soil geochemical sampling programme over North Point and several other select magnetic targets. During regional reconnaissance surveys over these Athena?s team of geologists identified a number of untested outcropping adcumulate and mesocumulate textured ultramafic bodies with associated magnetic anomalies. Rock chip samples from these locations (0.63% nickel and 0.07% cobalt) are comparable to samples collected over the Oldfield prospect. The new anomalies have similar magnetic textures and amplitudes to Oldfield where nickel sulphides have been intersected in drilling. These targets were evaluated by soil geochemical and ground geophysical surveys. Future exploration includes assessment of the geochemical survey results, assays pending, and regional interpretation of the high resolution geophysical datasets acquired during the previous two field seasons.
Exploration planned for the future includes an assessment of all geochemical survey results, assays and a regional interpretation of the high resolution geophysical datasets acquired during the previous two field seasons.
Oldfield Option
The Company commissioned SGS Lakefield Oretest Pty Ltd to carry out a pilot metallurgical test programme using composite samples of drilling cuttings from the reverse circulation (RC) drilling programme. The aim of the programme was to determine metallurgical recoveries and possible treatment options for the mineralisation at Oldfield on E74/218.
The results from the metallurgical test work, which were received in September 2007, were disappointing with recoveries less that expected for sulphide material. RC drill chips are not an ideal sample medium for metallurgical test work and it is possible that some oxidation of the samples occurred between the time the holes were drilled and the test work commenced; suppressing the recoveries. Petrology on the samples indicated that the Ni-Fe sulphides, pentlandite and violarite and the nickel sulphide, millerite are present in trace amounts. These minerals were observed in composite particles with pyrite or host silicates or carbonates. The head assay results show that non-sulphide nickel dominates the nickel content of all the oxidized and relatively fresh samples. The inferred Ni in sulphide (range of 0.05-0.12 wt %) and ratio of Nisulphide:S (range of 0.17-0.29) from head assay results indicates that the Ni or Ni-Fe sulphides are in trace amounts and less abundant than the pyrite which was observed.
A fixed loop ground and down-hole Electro-Magnetic (EM) survey was completed at Oldfield to test for off-hole conductors not sampled by Athena?s reverse circulation (RC) drilling program. Good correlation was achieved within the zones tested by the drilling, however no anomalous off-hole conductors were identified. The EM was followed-up with a 3D Induced Polarisation (IP) survey, designed to detect disseminated sulphides. The 3D IP survey failed to map any anomalous zones at depth, however it did identify a near surface conductor adjacent to RC drillhole OF07RC003, which intersected a 10 metre interval at 0.61% nickel from 57 metres downhole.
On the basis of these results Athena withdrew from the Oldfield Option Agreement. The Company also carried out a partial reduction on one tenement ahead of scheduled reductions and surrendered a further four exploration licences to concentrate on the 100% owned tenements in the Ravensthorpe Project.