Abydos Project

The Abydos project lies approximately 110 kilometres south of Port Hedland and straddles the Newman highway and Newman railway line.  The Abydos project comprises two exploration licences which are both Mineral Rights Tenements.  The Project is considered prospective for ultramafic hosted nickel deposits associated with rocks of the Sulphur Springs group, which occur on these tenements.  The major nickel occurrences in this part of the east Pilbara Block (i.e., Abydos, Abydos A, Abydos B, Camel Flat, Soanesville, Strelley and Strelley Gorge) occur in a similar geological setting.  Within the project area, the Abydos nickel prospect is a 1.0km long by 200m wide zone containing numerous outcrops of gossanous ironstone that assay up to 6.7% Ni.  Petrology identified pyrrhotite in two samples of the ironstone, one of which assayed 2.5% Ni.  In one area the nickel-ironstone strikes discontinuously for 700m and is up to 6m wide.  The presence of pyrrhotite is an important marker mineral for nickel sulphide mineralisation.

The Abydos project is also prospective for Archaean lode gold deposits, VHMS base metal mineralization and tin-tantalum pegmatite hosted deposits.  There are several geological and geochemical targets worthy of additional assessment.
In November 2007 Atlas Iron agreed to sell certain mineral rights to Shaw River on six granted tenements located in the Abydos region of the East Pilbara and are additional to the company’s two existing tenements in the area.

The tenements are currently being explored by Atlas for iron ore in the Pincunah Greenstone Belt. Historical mining in the area includes the Lynas Find goldfield (+140,000oz mined) and the Lallah Rookh Gold Mine (31,900oz mined). The eastern tenements of the group include rocks of the Sulphur Springs Group, which host the Sulphur Springs VHMS deposit (10mt @ 3.5% Zn and 1.5% Cu), just 8km to the east. Historical information shows the presence of multiple known occurrences of gold, base metals (copper-zinc-lead and silver), nickel and PGE anomalism across the tenements being acquired.

Tenement E45/2404 in the package includes the southern end of the prospective Tabba Tabba Shear Zone currently being explored by Shaw River with exciting new gold results at its Hedland Project. This mineralised greenstone belt hosts base metal, gold and PGE mineralisation.

Exploration licence application E45/2765 is located 4km from the Wodgina Tantalum mine.  The tenement overlies 7km strike length of the narrow, attenuated northeastern limb of the Wodgina Greenstone Belt.  Within the project area, flat-lying Ta-Sn-Be-Li pegmatite bodies may occur at shallow depths and may not be necessarily exposed at surface.