• Tenement prospective for molybdenum, tin and tungsten.
• Joint Venture agreement with Noah Resources NL executed in July, 2007 covering this and the Mt Paynter project. Noah to expend $400,000 over 2 years to earn a 70% interest. Monaro retains the right to participate in further exploration upon Noah earning a 50% interest in the tenements.
• Noah lists successfully late 2007.
• Noah commences exploration work with soil and stream sediment survey focused on previously delineated molybdenum soil anomaly and tin and tungsten workings

Setting

The Wymah project is located approximately 35 kilometres to the west of Albury, southern NSW. This Prospect reportedly consists of a number of quartz reefs up to 200 metres long and carrying varying quantities of tungsten, molybdenum and bismuth mineralisation. Some of these reefs have been worked in the past by adits and shafts, with a recorded production of approximately 3630 tonnes of ore. Grades averaged 0.5% WO3, 0.1%MoS2 and 0.18% Bi.

Geology

The bulk of the Licence is underlain by the Koetong Granite (Figure 1), which in the north intrudes the Adaminaby Group, which are composed mainly of slates and schists. At the Mullengandra workings, the host rocks include schists, phyllites and recrystallised sandstones which are intruded by pegmatitic veins and greisen dykes.

Mining History

The tenement is host to the Wymah Group of tungsten deposits, which have a recorded production of 29t of wolframite concentrates and 0.5 t of wolframite-bismuth concentrates. Around 4,000 t of ore was mined. These deposits were discovered in 1911, and the main period of working was during WWI, with some work continuing to at least 1937. There are references to the Commonwealth holding the leases until 1944, but no records of any tungsten being produced during WW2.

Minor production from surface dumps was recorded in 1951. Remnants of significant infrastructure are visible today, and it appears that recorded production may have been understated. The main reefs have been mined to around 20m depth.

Figure 1: Wymah Geology

Also located within the tenement is the Mullengandra tin field, which was discovered in 1903 and worked intermittently until 1914. It was rediscovered in 1927 and worked intermittently in the next two decades and was held by prospectors until 1973. The total recorded production of tin concentrates is 13 t.

Previous Exploration

North Broken Hill carried out regional stream sediment sampling for copper, lead, zinc and molybdenum, with some follow up soil sampling of the two anomalies shown on Figure 1. Planet Metals Limited carried out a literature search and prospecting for molybdenum over the northern part of the current Licence. No other records of exploration have been located.

Known Mineralisation

The host rock for the mineralised quartz veins at Wymah is typically a medium grained biotite granite, but pegmatites are also common. Individual quartz reefs are up to 2m thick and typically extend about 150m, although the Appletree reef is recorded as outcropping over 300m at surface. The dominant strike of the reefs is east-west. At least five separate reefs are known and are known to contain wolframite, molybdenite, bismuthinite and native bismuth. Reported grades range from 0.5 to 1.5% WO3, with 0.1% Mo and 0.18% Bi reported at Wymah itself. In 1942 a sample of jig tailings gave 0.4% WO3, demonstrating poor recoveries from the historic mining efforts.

At Mullengandra, mineralisation at the main workings occurs in narrow sub-vertical quartz veins (averaging 15 cm width). These are confined to a quartz rich schist where the quartz veins have been interpreted to reflect tension gashes in the more competent unit. At least 11 quartz veins have been mapped. Cassiterite is coarse grained and patchy, making representative sampling difficult. The quartz veins often show a tourmaline rich border which extends into the schist. Elsewhere at Mullengandra, finer grained cassiterite occurs disseminated in pegmatites (mapped up to 3m wide) and greisen dykes which intrude the schist sequence. These were also subject to some mining at McLurgs Gully, Parsons and Hunter workings.


Prospectivity and Targets

The Wymah mineralisation has been neglected by modern explorers. Old workings are scattered over an area of around 3 km2, and the area to the west is covered by soil and alluvium, which may conceal additional reefs not located by the early miners. The persistence at depth of these reefs is not known. Additional reefs, or mineralisation disseminated within pegmatites, could yield a bulk mining target in this area. Given the area of old workings at Mullengandra (over 1 km2) and the lack of serious modern exploration, this area warrants a detailed and extensive exploration program.

The northern contact zone of the Koetong Granite in this Licence has not been subject to any thorough modern exploration. North of the Wymah workings, geochemical exploration work by North Broken Hill outlined a large soil molybdenum anomaly (Figure 1) over 2 km long with a peak of 60 ppm Mo. The anomaly was attributed to several small wolframite bearing quartz veins in the area, but no follow up work was ever done. A smaller base metal anomaly was located in stream sediments to the north near the granite contact. This was apparently not followed up either, nor was it tested for molybdenum or tungsten.

The record of gold in the Wagra alluvials is intriguing as the geochemistry of this part of the Koetong Granite (the association of tungsten, bismuth, tin, and alluvial gold) is favourable for intrusive related gold deposits. Given the absence of modern gold exploration, this must be considered a promising area for grass roots gold exploration.

Proposed Exploration Activities

Noah Resources has commenced an exploration program which has incorporated an assessment of all available geophysical and other data together with a regional soil and stream sediment survey for gold, molybdenum, bismuth and tungsten. Depending upon the results, it is planned to carry out detailed mapping around the Wymah and Mullengandra workings.