Cowal

Geological setting and mineral system

The ground lies within the Junee–Narromine Volcanic Belt of the Ordovician Macquarie Arc — a first-order copper–gold province hosting the Northparkes porphyry and, to the south-west, the Cowal gold deposit. The calcareous shelf sequence beneath the historical licence was recorded by the operator as prospective for replacement-style gold (R00004922, §2.2). The Wisdom Prospect carries an intrusion-related / distal-greisen signature (Au–As–Sb–W, low base metals) with a low-sulphidation epithermal / sediment-hosted alternative carried explicitly. The causative intrusive centre is a geophysical inference — modelled at approximately 1 km depth from a December 1990 aeromagnetic high — not an intersection: no historical hole has reached it (percussion ≤42 m; RAB refusal 30–50 m at the top of bedrock).

The grades — what the system has already demonstrated

Reported historical results — GSNSW open-file, verbatim-sourced (the only intercepts in this document)
Wisdom rock chip FEL-023 — 0.82 g/t Au, with 740 ppm As, 100 ppm W, 70 ppm Cu, 165 ppm Zn (R00004920)	Best surface gold in the corridor. It is the enclosing Au–As–Sb system — not this single gold value — that is independently reproduced (rows below). Surface gold tenor is otherwise modest (most assays <0.01 g/t) and the high-grade positions are untested to vertical depth.
Percussion N119P3 — down-hole As to 1,750 ppm over ~20 m (successive 4 m composites); Au <0.01 g/t on composites (R00004921)	Reproduces the arsenic system into bedrock by a second method. The hole was angled into the diorite footwall and assayed Au/As-only on 4 m composites — a geometry and suite ill-suited to detecting narrow gold. Confirms an arsenic system at depth; says nothing about gold continuity.
1995 Delta Gold / TriOrigin re-sample — reported 0.168 g/t Au, 400 ppm As (MinView export; R00002219 not located)	Provisional cross-operator confirmation only. The sample has no surveyed location (MinView placeholder coordinates copied from an adjacent sample; four rows tagged to EL4732/EL4991 “North Parkes”). Retrieval of R00002219 and relocation onto the EL 3626 footprint is a named Phase 1 pass/fail gate; if it cannot be placed, this line of evidence falls away.
Northern RAB RN119-20 — 0.056 g/t Au over 3 m (42–45 m) in pyritic calcareous sediment; Ba to 5,810 ppm, As to 185 ppm; open at base of hole (62 m) (R00004922)	Best sub-cover expression, tested only at the top of bedrock beneath >30 m of Tertiary cover; the carbonaceous horizon is open at the base of the hole. A diagenetic (barite) origin for the barium is not yet excluded.

Exploration history — three operators, four documented campaigns

Period	Operator (licence)	Model targeted	Departure reason (R-number)
1990–91	Newmont Australia Ltd (EL 3626)	Replacement-style (Carlin) gold in the calcareous shelf sequence	Defined the Wisdom Au–As–Sb anomaly and advanced to drilling — mineralisation found, not exited (R00004920)
1991	Newmont / Newcrest (EL 3626)	Down-dip replacement gold beneath the silicified horizons, then a buried porphyry Cu–Au model	Declared no auriferous replacement horizons on shallow percussion and pivoted to a buried porphyry model (R00004921)
1991–92	Newcrest Mining Ltd (EL 3626)	Buried porphyry Cu–Au beneath an interpreted aeromagnetic stock	Concluded a low probability of a significant near-surface gold resource; recommended relinquishment (R00004922)
1995	Delta Gold / TriOrigin (North Parkes program)	Independent re-sampling of the Wisdom gold system	Departure not documented — report R00002219 not yet located; its retrieval is a Phase 1 gate

Each documented departure is model- or economic-driven — the ground was relinquished on a low near-surface-gold probability, not on the system having been tested to depth.

Why the grade is still available — in the operators' own words

Wrong commodity, wrong model. The 1991 percussion holes were collared to test “down-dip extensions to and stratigraphically below silica-replaced horizons” (R00004921) — that is, angled into the diorite footwall rather than along strike through the high-grade surface gold. When the composites returned gold-poor, the operator did not refine the gold test; it changed model entirely, pivoting to a buried porphyry Cu–Au stock. Its own petrologist had already recorded the assemblage as “the distal part of an intrusive halo” and a “near-intrusive greisen type … base-metal and tungsten-rich” system (R00004920) — a written read that the operator retained in the appendix but did not act on.

The analytical gap. The database audit finds the drilling was never assayed for the diagnostic elements: the percussion was Au- and As-only on 4 m composites, and the RAB was Au–As–Ba–Sb only. No mercury, thallium, silver or tungsten — the exact epithermal / Carlin and intrusion-related discriminators — was assayed in any hole, and no certified reference materials or blanks were inserted, with no core retained. Yet the pathfinder system reproduces independently: arsenic to 1,750 ppm down-hole in N119P3, and a recurring As–Ba–Sb association in reduced carbonaceous sediment across multiple northern holes.

The untested target. The high-grade surface gold positions (FEL-023 / FEL-022, WP-1 / WP-3) have not been drilled along strike or to vertical depth; the historical holes tested the diorite footwall instead. The interpreted northern magnetic stock has not been drill-tested at depth — the RAB reached only the top of bedrock — and the down-hole arsenic anomaly in N119P3 was never assayed for gold below the 4 m composite level. The petrologist's recommendation to reassess the system as intrusion-related was documented and never actioned.

The miss, precisely. Every operator found the arsenic system and confirmed it into bedrock — but no one ever drilled the high-grade gold positions to depth: the historical holes were angled into the barren diorite footwall, tested only Au and As (never Hg, Tl, Ag or W) on coarse 4 m composites, and were then abandoned when the operator switched to chasing a deep porphyry instead. The gold was never disproved; it was walked past.

System scale — footprint dimensions and belt-class context

Footprint. The surface Au–As–Sb anomaly spans approximately 1.8 km N–S × 1 km E–W (a provisional dimension — it stitches rock chips across two local grids not yet co-registered to MGA), with the strongest gold clustered in a ~150 m patch and the silicified (jasperoid) ridge traced over ~600 m of strike. The arsenic system is confirmed into bedrock over ~20 m down-hole (N119P3). The northern sub-cover target sits beneath >30 m of Tertiary cover and is open at the base of RN119-20 (62 m). Depth tested to date is shallow — percussion ≤42 m, RAB refusal 30–50 m — against an interpreted causative intrusive modelled at ~1 km.

Belt-class context. The synthesis cites the belt endowment — the Northparkes porphyry Cu–Au system, the Cowal gold deposit and the Marsden porphyry Cu–Au deposit — as geological context for the model class only, and explicitly reports no resource figure, in compliance with the JORC Code. No analogue tonnage or grade range is attached to this project, and none should be inferred. The synthesis makes no commercial or commodity-price argument; the case rests on geological grounds, and proximity is treated as a reason to look, not evidence of a deposit.

The targets

Primary — Target A, Wisdom Au–As–Sb corridor. The high-grade surface positions tested to vertical depth. The plain limitation: the deposit model is not resolved (intrusion-related greisen versus Carlin-style), and the down-hole arsenic confirms an arsenic system but not gold continuity — and the interpreted causative intrusive at ~1 km is beyond any near-term drill test, so the near-term target is the shallow high-grade positions, not the deep stock. The designed test that resolves it (CWD001–005, ~920 m diamond / RC, holes oriented grid-east or vertical to cross the silica ridge and the N119P3 arsenic trend) applies 1 m sampling — not 4 m composites — and the full multi-element suite (Au, As, Sb, Hg, Tl, Ag, Cu, Zn, Pb, W) the historical work never ran.

Secondary — Target B, northern sub-cover As–Ba–Sb–Au. Drill beneath the cover into bedrock below RAB refusal at RN119-20 (open at 62 m) and RN119-27 (sustained 70–95 ppm As corridor on a NW lineament) — CWD006–009 — to test whether the barium reflects hydrothermal input or diagenetic barite.

Deeper — interpreted ~1 km intrusive centre. Not a near-term drill target; resolved by a modern quantitative geophysical interpretation in Stage 1, not by drilling.

Testing the thesis — gates, kill criteria, cost to answer

Phase / cost	Scope	Gate & kill criterion
Stage 1 — desktop (low-cost; indicative ranges are a Phase 1 scoping item — not asserted in the synthesis)	Track ELA7081 to grant; retrieve R00002219 and relocate the 1995 samples; co-register the two local grids to MGA; reprocess GSNSW TMI / AEM / gravity and complete the 1990 aeromagnetic interpretation; build a ranked drill-target register.	Gate: drill only if the ground is accessible (ELA7081 granted) and ≥1 drill-ready target survives the geophysical re-interpretation. Kill (binary, desktop-cost): if R00002219 cannot place the 1995 hit on the EL 3626 footprint, the cross-operator reproducibility pillar falls away and the score is revisited before any drilling spend. If tenure proves unavailable, the project converts to a brownfield approach to a current holder rather than pegging.
Stage 2 — Target A (CWD001–005, ~920 m diamond / RC, holes to ~160–200 m; indicative design-basis ~A$200–250/m all-in — the synthesis and design carry costs as a scoping item)	Drill the Wisdom high-grade positions to vertical depth across the silica ridge / N119P3 arsenic trend; 1 m sampling; full multi-element suite; CP-standard QAQC (CRM, blank and duplicate at 1-in-20; RTK collar and gyroscopic down-hole survey in MGA Zone 55; systematic alteration logging).	A pass/fail geological test, not a resource drill-out. A gold-poor result re-frames the play to the conservative intrusion-related / greisen case — the ~1 km intrusive remains an untested deeper prize — rather than zeroing it. The programme is not designed to define a Mineral Resource.
Stage 2 — Target B (CWD006–009, ~480 m RC ± diamond tails, holes to ~110–130 m)	Drill beneath >30 m of cover into the carbonaceous bedrock horizon below RAB refusal at RN119-20 (open at 62 m) and RN119-27, under the same suite and QAQC.	Binary at-depth test: does the Ba–As–Sb–Au association reflect a hydrothermal contribution or diagenetic barite (the null)? The historical RAB reached only the top few metres of bedrock; this is the only decisive test.

Technical Manager: Dr Tim McConachy FAusIMM (1974), Senior Fellow SEG, former Rio Tinto Chief Geologist.

Data room (under NDA): technical synthesis, Phase 1 drill programme design, source register and figure set.

Contact: Doug Alcock, Managing Director, CAADIA Metals Pty Ltd — dalcock@caadiametals.com.au

No JORC (2012) Mineral Resource, Ore Reserve or Exploration Target is declared or implied. Historical results are compiled from GSNSW open-file (DIGS) records, have not been verified by a Competent Person for public reporting, and are provided for context only. The IRGS / distal-replacement interpretation is a working hypothesis under test; alternative interpretations of the geophysical data exist. Earn-in terms are indicative and non-binding, subject to contract, due diligence and grant of the Exploration Licence.