PROJECTS & OPERATIONS

MT VETTERS, WA – 75% – JV WITH CAZALY RESOURCES LTD – NICKEL, GOLD AND URANIUM

The Mt Vetters Project, on granted exploration licence 27/0358 is located in the eastern part of the Norseman – Wiluna greenstone belt, 30 km northeast of Kalgoorlie in the Yilgarn Craton. The Mt Vetters tenements occur 5km to the south of the Black Swan Komatiite Complex (BSKC), host to the Silver Swan mine (indicated resource 640,000 t @ 9.5% Ni), Black Swan (probable reserve of 10.4 Mt @ 0.83% Ni) and adjacent Cygnet deposit (probable reserve of 1.1 Mt @ 2.1% Ni) and occur 10km to the north of the Kanowna Belle Gold Mine. The Mt Vetters project is75% owned by Proto and 25% by Cazaly Resources Ltd (“Cazaly”).

Exploration History

Preliminary exploration work was carried out by Discovery Nickel, who, in 2003 collected ground EM (Smartem) over the entire nine kilometre strike length of the magnetic anomaly interpreted to be the extension of the Black Swan Komatiite Complex. In the southern half of the EM survey area a 200m long conductor was identified. An RC drill hole tested this conductor in late 2004. No anomalous results were returned from the hole and the conductor was interpreted to be a channel at the base of the overburden containing saline water. However, close re-interpretation of available aeromagnetic data in early 2005 showed the possibility of a second mafic trend extending south of the area.

Recent Work

In the second half of 2009, Proto Resources undertook drilling at Mt Vetters to investigate targets drawn from the geophysical data. Three RC drill holes were completed at Mt Vetters for a total of 438m. The holes were drilled by Ranger Drilling Services of Perth using a truck mounted Hydco 350 drill rig with auxiliary compressor and booster. On September 10 2009, Proto Resources announced the assay results from this programme. The four metre composite assay results received failed to return significant levels of gold, nickel or other base metal anomalism. A peak gold assay result of 1m @ 0.256g/t Au was returned from within a 4m composite sample assaying 4m @ 0.011g/t Au. Proto has now designed a final programme of RC drilling to determine remaining potential on the exploration licence. 

Mt Vetters Tenement Map