Harry Smith Gold Project – Central NSW
Overview
The Harry Smith Gold Project lies 30km south of Ardlethan and has three distinct gold-bearing quartz reefs. The mineralisation is thought to be of Intrusion-Related Gold (IRG) type and associated with the nearby Grong Grong granite.
Exploration Activities
Thomson has completed multiple drilling campaigns at the Harry Smith Project, which has unearthed a thick low-grade gold mineralisation from surface as well as deeper high-grade lodes. Drilling has successfully extended the known mineralisation to the west and northwest connecting the Harry Smith and Silver Spray lodes.
Drilling to date has concentrated on the historic workings around the shallow Harry Smith open cut, with further drilling planned to intersect the Golden Spray Lode at shallower depths to the northwest.
Location and Geology
Three distinct gold-bearing quartz reefs occur at the Harry Smith prospect, 14km north of Grong Grong. Some of these reefs were previously worked under different names (e.g. Osbornes, Golden Spray, Silver Spray and Lone Hand) in three periods (1893-1902, 1911-1917 and 1937-1942). Total recorded production was over 3,500 ounces of gold. NSW Mines Report no. 2507 states that 16,000 ounces of gold were produced from these historic workings up to 1941, after being discovered in 1893.
The Harry Smith gold prospect is situated within the central zone of the Early to Middle Paleozoic Lachlan Fold Belt, historically known as the Wagga Belt. It contains deformed Ordovician aged turbiditic sediments, intruded by Siluro-Devonian aged S-type and I-type granites, unconformably overlain by Late Devonian siliclastic continental sediments. Relief in the area is generally low, and large areas of deep soils, alluvium and a variety of Tertiary to Recent unconsolidated sediments obscure much of the Paleozoic geology across the EL.
Barellan Tenement
On 15th October 2021 Thomson Resources announced that it had completed acquisition of the Barellan Gold Project. Barellan is located approximately 20km NW of Harry Smith gold project and adds a further 71km2 of gold prospective land the Lachlan Fold Belt Hub and Spoke Project.
The main prospect in Barellan is the Warrawong Prospect. This includes the Daley and Greig historic gold workings, which consisted of 3 shafts along a NW-trending line-of-lode. No production is recorded, and the workings are now filled in.
