The Warrawoona Gold Project, WA: Reverse Engineering Gold Exploration

The Warrawoona Gold Project comprises orogenic gold mineralisation hosted in mafic and ultramafic rocks of the c. 3.53-3.43Ga Warrawoona Group in the East Pilbara Terrane of the Pilbara Craton. Calidus Resources acquired the project in March 2017. The project comprised several prospects, the largest of which was Klondyke with an Inferred Mineral Resource of 5.6Mt @ 2.08g/t for 374,000oz. Development of the field had been hindered previously by fractured ownership with a substantial gap in the middle of the resource. After consolidating ownership, Calidus then set about to increase both the size of, and confidence in, the resource. Concurrently, efforts were made to understand the key factors responsible for mineralisation and how those could be applied in the search for other deposits in the project area. The talk will present the development history of the project, the nature and timing of the gold mineralisation, and how those findings are being utilised in greenfields exploration in an ancient greenstone belt.