Overview
Empire maintains a portfolio of highly prospective exploration assets in Australia, offering additional upside across commodities.
Australia
The Eclipse Project
The Eclipse Project area is located approximately 55km NNE of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in close proximity to the Kanowna Belle gold plant, 35km to the south. The area is accessed by the Yarri Road, which is a partially sealed, well-used road and is generally maintained in good condition. Empire holds a 75% interest in the Eclipse Project.
Geological Setting
Eclipse is situated within the Kurnalpi Terrane, close to the boundary of the prolific Kalgoorlie terrane (high Au and Ni endowment) defined by the major regional Ockerburry Fault system (Figure 1). The surrounding district is dominated by 2.70 Ga mafic volcanic rocks, calc-alkaline complexes, feldspathic sedimentary rocks, and mafic rocks. The western margin of the Kurnalpi terrane comprises slightly younger 2.68 Ga rhyolite-basalt and felsic calc-alkaline complexes and associated volcanoclastic sediments.
Exploration and Historical Mining Activities
The Eclipse gold mine has had multiple owners since its discovery in 1902. In the period from April 1905 to November 1910 the Eclipse shaft was developed to a depth of 258 feet and produced 954 tonnes @ 24.6 g/t Au for 754.25 oz Au (source: GSWA Mindex database). In the 1990s the shaft was dewatered, refurbished to the bottom level and the collar of the shaft was re-established with concrete.
Extensive exploration of the present area was carried out throughout the late 20th century to the present by the various owners of the licence area including, but not limited to, aerial photography, geological mapping, dump sampling, underground mapping and sampling, geophysics, and RAB and RC drilling.
Prospecting has occurred intermittently on the licence. However, since acquiring the property, Empire has executed a systematic exploration programme comprising soils geochemistry, close-spaced ground magnetics geophysics, and RC and diamond drilling, from which the Company has proven the mineralised envelope at Eclipse is open both along strike and at depth, and identified that there are multiple parallel veins which coalesce around the old Eclipse Shaft.
Empire has undertaken significant drill programmes including 15,117 m of RC drilling and 1,328 m of diamond drilling. This has confirmed the presence of exceptional gold mineralisation.
Since August 2020, Empire has completed a series of exploration drill programmes culminating in a small but high-grade gold mineral inventory around the historical Eclipse mine shaft. The drilling to date has confirmed that the gold mineralisation is associated with a NW-striking and steeply SW-dipping shear zone with significant gold mineralisation known to extend over a strike length of more than 500 metres.
The Walton project
Location
The Walton Project is located in the under-explored Yerilgee greenstone belt, which is part of the Southern Cross domain, and is 475km from Perth. Empire holds 70% interest over in a joint venture with Century Minerals Pty Ltd.
Geological Setting
The Yerilgee belt comprises a sequence of high-magnesium basalts, ultramafic volcanic rocks, sedimentary rocks and granites including iron formations. It is part of the 2.9 Ga Western Yilgarn greenstone succession that hosts the world-class Golden Grove VHMS system, and a number of other emerging VHMS prospects such as Cobre Ltd’s Perrinvale Project and Arrow Minerals Strickland Project.
Exploration and Mining Activities
There has been recent exploration success in the region, as seen at Spectrum Metals’ high-grade Penny North discovery which led to a takeover of Spectrum Metals by Ramelius Resources in 2020. Ramelius Resources is mining the Marda gold operation in the greenstone belt immediately to the west of Yerilgee.
Cobre’s drilling at the Schwabe Prospect at Perrinvale, which lies to the north of Walton, intersected massive sulphide mineralisation at shallow depth, including 6m grading 8.93% copper, 3.1 g/t gold, 3.52% zinc, 30 g/t silver and 0.14% cobalt. In addition to VHMS, there is potential for orogenic gold associated with major belt parallel shear zones and lithium-bearing pegmatites which are common in the higher metamorphic grade terrains of the Yilgarn craton.
Minimal exploration activities have been undertaken on the Walton licence area and it is Empire’s plan to initially carry out field geological mapping, including surface soils/auger sampling, geochemical mapping and potentially additional geophysics to help identify copper, gold and lithium targets.