Broken Hill Gold blows White Dam hunt wide open in SA

Broken Hill Gold has emerged from its recent rebranding from PacGold, with its sights firmly fixed on White Dam. The company has blown open a much bigger exploration front at its 100 per cent-owned project, 80km east of Broken Hill in South Australia, with the Icebreaker discovery pointing to resource growth and triggering a hunt for deeper gold-copper riches across a swag bag of near-mine targets.

Icebreaker, previously the White Dam North prospect, has revealed what could be a significant mineralised system sitting beneath White Dam’s shallow oxide gold. Drilling hit 20m grading 2.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.5 per cent copper from 58m, including 6m at 7.5g/t gold and 1.2 per cent copper. Another hole returned 10m at 3.4g/t gold and 0.7 per cent copper from 54m. The discovery lies within a magnetic anomaly that extends up to 1km and remains open in all directions.

Hannaford and Vertigo produced 200,000 and 100,000 ounces respectively. However, one of the few deep holes beneath Hannaford hit 29m at 0.7g/t gold from 315m and remains open along strike and down dip. The Vertigo Fault between the pits remains untested at depth.

Elsewhere, old workings are throwing up plenty of smoke. Mary Mine returned 16m at 0.9g/t gold and 2.2 per cent copper, Green and Gold Mine delivered 36m at 1.0g/t gold and 0.3 per cent copper and the Wilkins prospect hit 9m at 0.9g/t gold and 0.5 per cent copper. Surface samples peaked at 13 per cent copper at Mary.

The Rolling prospect, 800m north of Hannaford and on the same magnetic feature as Icebreaker, returned 4m at 2.7g/t gold from 34m, including 1m at 8.0g/t. Hannaford North, White Dam East, Hannaford Northeast and Vertigo West add to the near-mine pipeline.

The Wadnaminga prospect, 80km southwest, adds a 700m undeveloped lode around old workings that produced 19,962 ounces at 37.88g/t gold.

Together, a review of historical exploration data has put more than 50 prospects in the frame, several of which share characteristics with Icebreaker, Vertigo and Hannaford and are generally untested below 80m.

Icebreaker has turned the White Dam exploration thesis on its head. Its sulphide-hosted gold-copper discovery points towards iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) mineralisation, a deposit family capable of forming very large orebodies.

White Dam sits within the underexplored Curnamona Province of eastern South Australia, where oxide gold caps can overlie primary gold-copper sulphides linked to structural feeder zones. Classified as an iron-poor IOCG end member, its deeper copper-gold potential has never been systematically tested, with previous explorers overwhelmingly focused on shallow oxide gold for heap leaching.

Broken Hill Gold managing director Matthew Boyes said: “The Curnamona province is becoming some of the most prized exploration ground in Australia with major companies now focusing on acquiring and exploring in the region primarily for IOCG and large metasediment-hosted copper-gold systems.”

The company is now backing that conviction with more than 30,000m of drilling over 18 months, alongside electrical and magnetic geophysics and geochemistry.