Eugowra Project

The Eugowra Project (EL6880) 100% CRC covers an area of 390 sq km. The under-explored tenement is located 40km SE of Forbes in the Mt Foster-Tumut structural zone of the Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW.

The Early Devonian Eugowra Granite suite intrude the surrounding Ordovician metasediment Kirribilli Formation. The area presents a comparable geological model to that at Dargues Reef, being a similar aged intrusive with similar granitic chemistry. The variably magnetic I type Eugowra Granite suite also displays historic granite hosted gold mineralisation and is considered prospective for Intrusion Related Gold mineralisation. The Eugowra suite batholith (30km x 20km) is entirely enclosed by EL6880.

Historic past gold production, within the tenement has been recorded from deep alluvial leads (46kg) and locally the Eugowra suite granites are associated with gold, tin and copper mineralisation. The source of the gold was previously assumed to be related to quartz veining within the granites or associated with the volcanics further south. However, past investigation by Austminex NL confirms that the granite is mineralised and rock chip samples associated with miarolitic and altered granite returned up to 14g/t Au.

The Eugowra project is still at an early exploration phase, however, geological interpretation suggests that the identified gold mineralisation is likely to be structurally controlled. The Dargues Reef exploration model will be applied to the geological setting aimed at identification of roof zone structures and Intrusion Related Gold mineralisation.

The identified mineralisation style presents similarities to Timbarra (resource 16.8Mt @ 0.73g/t Au) where structurally controlled mineralisation comprising roof zones contain disseminated free gold with minimal associated quartz veining or sulphides. Another structural exploration target is presented in splay zones emanating from the Coolac-Narromine suture where previous explorers have identified alteration zones in structurally controlled corridors within the granite suite.

Immediate exploration activities include a review and compilation of previous exploration data and a detailed low level aeromagnetic survey. As well as detailed lineament, aerial photography and radiometric interpretations together with regional geological mapping and first pass rock chip sampling.

Cortona have now recieved preliminary images from a detailed aeromagnetic and radiometric survey flowen in August 2008. A total of 9,812 line km’s of data were recorded at 50m line spacing and 40m flight height. The geophysical data is of a very high quality and an initial inspection highlights considerable new structural and lithological information that will be a valuable input into future targeting of Dargues ’look a-like’ features.