Presentations
Kenex staff regularly present their work at conferences and workshops in New Zealand, Australia and Internationally. Have a look at our latest video presentations or scroll back through our archives below.
New Exploration in NZ Stimulated by the Crown Minerals Prospectivity Modeling Studies for Gold
The Epithermal and Mesothermal Gold Prospectivity modeling projects carried out by Crown Minerals provided explorers in New Zealand with a new compilation of historical exploration data combined with new geological information from the GNS QMap 1:250,000 scale mapping project. These data were used to produce predictive mineral potential maps for gold mineralisation in New Zealand.
The aim of these projects, to stimulate mineral exploration and investment in exploration, has been successful with eight new companies acquiring new tenement positions and committing significant exploration expenditure to exploring in New Zealand in the coming years. The projects were done at a national scale and consequently not all exploration data were compiled into the prospectivity models. Several of the new companies recognised the value of the prospectivity modeling work and committed exploration funds to continue the modeling process. They recognised a need to compile the remaining data and run the models again to allow detailed exploration targeting.
Detailed data compilations including digitising historic exploration stream sediment sample, rock chip sample, soil sample and drilling data have been completed. New models have been completed in Otago for mesothermal gold mineralisation and in the Coromandel and Northland for epithermal gold. The new models have been compared with the original regional scale models and used to target prospect scale exploration.
This work has allowed exploration models for epithermal and mesothermal mineralisation in New Zealand to be refined. More importantly this work has identified significant areas with potential to host gold mineralisation with little or no systematic geochemical data including soil sampling or drilling. Exploration work programs have been designed to acquire these missing data and exploration funds have now been committed to test the areas highlighted by the prospectivity modeling.
In summary, the Epithermal and Mesothermal Gold Prospectivity modeling work has successfully attracted new investment and ideas to the exploration scene in New Zealand. The projects had an estimated cost of NA$250,000 and will in the next two years, just through exploration expenditure, attract more than NZ$10 M in investment. If a mine is discovered the return on investment will be considerably greater.