Is Creasy-backed CZR on the verge of a major gold discovery?

CZR is in a strong position to make multiple discoveries following the A$75 million cash sale of its Robe Mesa iron ore project to Rio Tinto earlier this year.

Legendary prospector Mark Creasy owns 51% of CZR and is a 30% partner in the Croydon project. He is also a 15% partner in the Buddadoo copper and Yarraloola iron ore projects.

Croydon is just 50km from the 11.2Moz Hemi project, discovered by De Grey Mining in 2020 and acquired by Northern Star Resources for A$6 billion earlier this year.

Northern Star is yet to update the Hemi resource but last week reported new results of 3.6m at 19.4 grams per tonne gold; 2.2m at 37.5g/t; 13.7m at 2.7g/t; 12.4m at 1.31g/t; and 8m at 9.9g/t at Diucon/Crow.

The company also reported results of 11m at 4.9g/t gold; 8m at 2.9g/t; 17m at 1.5g/t; and 12m at 5.6g/t at Mt Berghaus, 12km northwest of Hemi, highlighting the prospectivity of the region.

“We’re in the right neighbourhood – we’ve known that for quite some time – and we have existing gold mineralisation there already at Croydon,” CZR managing director Stefan Murphy told the Resources Rising Stars Summer Series in Melbourne last week.

CZR recently started reverse circulation drilling at Croydon but Murphy stressed it was no greenfields play.

Drilling at Top Camp in 2019 returned 27m at 3.2g/t gold from 135m, including 8m at 10g/t gold; 8m at 1.7g/t gold from 66m; 2m at 22g/t gold from 7m; and 5m at 3.2g/t gold from 132m.

“We’re out there now effectively building on what we already have at Croydon,” Murphy said.

It’s been five years since the last drilling at Top Camp.

Top Camp has been defined over around a 600m strike length, but the company expects that to grow to over 1km.

“Importantly, when this was drilled back in 2019-2020, Hemi hadn’t been discovered, so we’ve been able to really watch what’s happened at De Grey, watch what’s happened now at Northern Star and refocus our exploration activities as a consequence,” Murphy said.

The company already has quartz vein-hosted gold in the Mallina sediments but is also looking for Hemi-style intrusion-related gold mineralisation, or what Murphy described as the “engine room”.

“Where is this gold coming from? We can see a huge amount of gold all through the Mallina sediments, all through our project area, but what we really also want to find is the source,” he said.

“De Grey were very successful with that. They obviously discovered Hemi and really understood what was driving that.”

Murphy said the company was seeing quartz veining in the early drilling.

The first batch of samples is being sent to the laboratory with assays due in early January.

Such is CZR’s confidence in the project that it has already added a second RC rig before receiving any assays.

The second rig will test a large gravity and magnetic anomaly beneath the known Top Camp mineralisation.

“We’re really going to be hitting this as hard as possible before we get to effectively the Christmas break and when the wet season kicks in,” Murphy said.

“We see a lot of other potential prospects within this land package and we’ve really only just scratched the surface.”

Murphy also hinted the company would move to a full resource drill-out next year, saying the aim was to build “a multimillion-ounce position over time”.

But wait, there’s more

If the potential for another Hemi doesn’t get hearts racing, the potential for another Golden Grove just might.

29Metals’ Golden Grove volcanogenic massive sulphide mine has a resource of 53.8Mt at 1.7% copper, 4.2% zinc, 0.7g/t gold and 30g/t silver and has been operating continuously since 1990.

CZR’s Buddadoo project is just 45km away, while Vault Minerals’ Deflector gold-copper mine is 10km away.

“We’re sitting within a cluster of VMS deposits. It’s exactly where we want to be,” Murphy said. “And we have an existing VMS deposit which we’re going to start drilling shortly.”

That deposit, Edamurta, was first discovered in the 1970s at the same time as Golden Grove.

“It was drilled again in the 1990s, but it’s had very little work since,” Murphy said.

Previous results included 3.2m at 3.8% copper from 188.7m; 4m at 1.5% copper, 5g/t silver and 0.1g/t gold from 104m; 7m at 0.9% copper, 4g/t silver and 0.1g/t gold from 112m; and 5.5m at 3.4% zinc from 99m.

“So, we know that we’ve got a VMS deposit. The question now is how big can it be and how high grade can it be?” Murphy said.

In June, CZR completed a moving-loop electromagnetic survey, which identified several conductor plates not intersected in previous drilling.

“We’re talking about work that was done in the ‘70s and early 90s,” Murphy said. “They just simply didn’t have the same sorts of technology that we’ve got now.”

CZR is planning an 11-hole RC program as soon as approvals are received, expected within weeks, which will be followed by downhole EM surveying.

“This is a very exciting prospect for us,” Murphy said. “The fact that we’re able to go out and drill a known VMS deposit in a VMS district with some of the largest operating mines in Australia.”