Waratah

 

Geological setting and mineral system

Concealed early-to-mid Palaeozoic basement interpreted as the north-western extension of the Junee–Narromine Volcanic Belt of the Macquarie Arc, straddling the Lachlan–Thomson orogen boundary, under 150–200 m of poorly lithified Mesozoic–Cainozoic cover; there is no Palaeozoic outcrop and no pre-existing stratigraphic drilling through the cover. The former holder's geophysical interpretation (Douglas Haynes Discovery, from GSNSW datasets including DIGS GS2012/394 and GS1997/574) defines a large, fault-repeated, north-plunging antiform of reduced Girilambone Group metaturbidite hosting a mafic (and possibly ultramafic) intrusive–extrusive complex — the host of both target models. Every element of that setting is an inference from magnetics and gravity, not an intersection: GSNSW assigns the complex a Lower Devonian age, while the former holder infers it may be older and Girilambone-hosted, and no hole has penetrated deeper than 211 m against inversions that carry the body to at least 700 m.

The grades — what drilling has demonstrated (and has not tested)

No mineralisation has been recorded on the ground; the two completed holes tested the gold-alteration margin, not the Ni–Cu–PGE core. The complete drilled maxima are reported below for transparency — the investment case is geophysical, not grade-based, and this is the only place intercepts appear in this document.

Complete drilled maxima — GSNSW open-file (DIGS RT2200804)
Result (verbatim, as lodged)	Confirmation status / resolving action
WARDH001: 343 ppm Cu with 0.011 g/t Au over 2 m at 189–191 m (sample 11232) — the maximum assay from the drilled margins.	Depth confirmed against the lodged DG4 geochemistry file in CP-level peer review (Appendix E item V1, closed). The 2022 Part A records the same peak “from 181 m” — the discrepancy is disclosed and attributed in the synthesis (§4.3.3); both sources named here.
WARDH002: 156.5 ppm Cu maximum (185.15–187 m); 5 % disseminated euhedral pyrite logged at 187.7–188 m.	As lodged; no discrepancy disclosed. No quartz veining or sulphide indicative of either target style was intersected.
PGE: Pt < 0.005 ppm (at or below detection) throughout; Pd low but detectable at ~6–18 ppb (ALS batches BR21176438 / BR21186845).	Tightened in peer review (item V6, closed). Resolving action: Phase 0 Ni–Cu–PGE-focused re-assay of the retained half-core — the original suite was designed against the gold model.
Trace native copper (0.01 %) logged on natural fractures at 158.7–159.0 m, WARDH001.	Logged observation, as lodged. No CRMs are evident in the historical batches, so analytical accuracy is not independently demonstrated; corrected in the Phase 1 protocol (§7).

Exploration history

Three holders in four decades; none has drilled the Ni–Cu–PGE core — every exit is documented as district-result, cost or portfolio-driven, not a test of the core target
Period	Operator (licence)	Model targeted	Departure reason (source)
1986–98	CRA Exploration (CRAE) — ground to the north	Six discrete magnetic anomalies (Discovery 2000 survey)	No further work after disappointing results on adjacent EL5089 — a diamond–diatreme programme, a different deposit model on a separate anomaly cluster ~35 km north (Doe & Palmer 1997, R00002990; Foster 1998, R00020368). No metallic intersection recorded on the EL8720 ground.
2011 (3 months)	AusNiCo Ltd	Doradilla-style Ni; inferred ultramafic sequence	Relinquished without field work, citing prohibitively high drilling costs from difficult conditions met by earlier explorers to the west (per the EL8720 open-file record, RT2200804).
2018–24	Australian Consolidated Gold Holdings / Inflection Resources (EL8720)	Mesothermal vein-array Au + Tethyan-style Ni–Cu–PGE; five designed targets	Drilled 2 of 5 targets (margin gold-alteration holes, June 2021) after wet weather delayed drilling across two successive years; downgraded the project, redirected expenditure to other titles, and relinquished at the six-year expiry (Final Report, April 2024; DIGS number not located in the material reviewed).

Why the target is still available — in the record's own words

Wrong commodity, wrong model. None of the three exits tested the Ni–Cu–PGE thesis. CRAE's withdrawal followed a diamond–diatreme failure on separate ground — the EL8720 reports cite it as the reason, but the synthesis records it as a different deposit model on a separate anomaly cluster, and therefore weak direct evidence against a metals model here. AusNiCo relinquished on drilling cost, in three months, without a hole. The most recent holder assayed against the gold model and drilled only the magnetite-destructive gold-alteration margin; its own consultant's Ni–Cu–PGE targets over the core were designed, permitted, and never drilled.

The analytical gap. The synthesis's audit of the lodged laboratory record finds the 2021 core was assayed primarily against the gold model, so a modern Ni–Cu–PGE-focused re-assay of the retained half-core (Trangie; collectable to the Londonderry Core Library) tests for sulphide-related signatures the first pass was not designed to detect. The same audit discloses that no certified reference materials are evident in the historical batches — analytical accuracy is not independently demonstrated — and pre-registers the corrected QAQC protocol for Phase 1 (§7).

The untested target. The former holder obtained an activity approval for all five designed holes during 2020–21 and completed two. In the synthesis's precise formulation: the three Ni–Cu–PGE targets (Waratah 1, 4 and 5), positioned over the high-susceptibility core of the gravity high, were not drilled — on the present record the Ni–Cu–PGE potential of the complex has not yet been tested. The drilled margins are not neutral evidence — they establish a dense, sulphur-poor mafic package and lower the fertility prior — and the synthesis states the barren-body null hypothesis explicitly, with its discriminants; the counterparty is asked to price a defined, shallow, fully worked-up single-shot test, not a de-risked system. 

The miss, precisely. The two holes ever drilled on this ground (June 2021) were collared on the north-eastern margin of the complex, sited on magnetite-destructive alteration under the gold model — inside the broader anomaly, but not on it. Between them they penetrated only 36–55 m of fresh bedrock, against inversions that carry the body to at least 700 m depth. The three Ni–Cu–PGE targets over the high-susceptibility core of the gravity high — Waratah 1, 4 and 5, designed and activity-approved by the former holder — were never collared. The miss is therefore positional, not a failed test: the core of the target has had no drill hole, and the first hole of the conditional programme (WATDD001, Waratah 4) is designed to be that test.

System scale and analogue context — dimensions, never tonnes

Footprint. A coincident, prominent high-amplitude Bouguer gravity high and moderate-amplitude magnetic complex; susceptibility and magnetic-vector inversions resolve a coherent, antiformally configured body persisting to at least 700 m depth; Euler depth-to-basement solutions of ~104–207 m place the top near-surface. Five drill targets were defined across the complex; drilling to date has penetrated only 36–55 m of fresh bedrock on its north-eastern margin. The ELA7080 application covers 30 units (~89 km²).

Analogue class — the former holder's, not CAADIA's. The former holder's consultant analogised the gold-alteration style to Stawell (a mesothermal vein-array system in a mafic-volcanic-cored antiform) and the core targets to Tethyan-orogen Ni–Cu. The synthesis carries these exactly as cited: for context and target rationale only — they are the former holder's analogues, not CAADIA Metals estimates, and imply no grade or tonnage for the Waratah ground. The conservative case is stated with equal weight: the strongest alternative reading is a barren, dense, post-arc tholeiitic body carrying no magmatic sulphide and requiring no fertile arc intrusion — fully consistent with the same geophysics — and the drilled low-Zr lavas leave Macquarie Arc fertility this far north not established. No commercial or price argument is advanced in the synthesis, and none is made here.

6  The targets

Primary — Waratah 4 (WATDD001). The central core target closest to the drilled margin, over the high-susceptibility core of the gravity high. Its known technical limitations are stated plainly: a coincident gravity–magnetic high is permissive, not diagnostic, of Ni–Cu sulphide — many such bodies drill out barren — and the target position is a figure-derived approximation (± 1 km), not a surveyed collar. The designed test resolves both: Phase 0 independently re-models the open-file geophysics and fixes final collars before any metres, and every Phase 1 hole carries down-hole EM, which separates a barren mafic body from a sulphide-bearing one on conductance and resolves off-hole conductors the core itself may miss.

Secondary. Waratah 5 (WATDD002) and Waratah 1 (WATDD003) — the remaining core targets, same design basis, prioritised 2 and 3. The former holder's inversion analysis also recorded additional interpreted plays on the complex's margins (mesothermal-Au SE and NW; a further Ni–Cu position) — interpretation positions only, not surveyed collars; the gold-alteration style itself has been tested on the NE margin and downgraded.

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

The complete kill-or-confirm answer for the Ni–Cu–PGE thesis costs A$0.5–1.0M (central case ~A$0.75M) and is binary against pre-registered criteria
Phase + cost	Scope	Gate & kill criterion
Phase 0 — desktop; low-cost, no field mobilisation	Ni–Cu–PGE re-assay of retained WARDH001/002 half-core; independent re-model of the UTS 100 m aeromagnetics, gravity and Newexco inversions; final collar fix (exact former-holder proposed collars retrieved from DIGS); ELA7080 to grant; native-title confirmation of target units.	HARD GATE: Phase 0 sign-off precedes any drill metres. The cheap kill: a barren result on the modern PGE suite strengthens the kill case before drilling; a tenor or vector the gold-designed first pass missed re-prices the whole programme.
Phase 1 — three pre-collared diamond holes; indicative A$0.5–1.0M (central ~A$0.75M)	WATDD001 (Waratah 4, priority 1), WATDD002 (Waratah 5), WATDD003 (Waratah 1); ~200–250 m each, ~675 m total, mud-rotary/RC pre-collars + HQ/NQ tails; ME-MS61-class multi-element + Pt–Pd–Au 30 g fire assay on all bedrock intervals; DHEM in every hole; fertility petrography and lithogeochemistry. QAQC: matrix-matched Ni–Cu–PGE CRMs, blanks and field duplicates at a stated frequency (e.g. 1-in-20), umpire re-assay of anomalous intervals, JORC (2012) Table 1 commentary compiled alongside.	Pre-registered, quantitative criteria fixed at the Phase 0 gate; only one of three counts as a pass — magmatic sulphide above a pre-registered Ni tenor; a discrete off-hole DHEM conductor above a pre-registered conductance; or a repeatable gold-alteration vector above pre-registered grade and width. Anything short is a kill, and the criteria “are written so that a barren, non-fertile body can be confirmed as readily as a fertile one” (Drill Programme Design v1.0, §1).
Co-funding precedent	The former holder secured a New Frontiers Cooperative Drilling Grants Program (Round 3) co-funding grant for this target set.	A precedent for co-funding candidacy of the Phase 1 holes under the current NSW programme round.

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

Data room (under NDA): technical synthesis v4.1, 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.