Barrytown Project, New Zealand

Alloy Resources Limited is pleased to announce that is has applied for an exploration permit over the Barrytown Mineral Sands deposit located on the South Island of New Zealand.

It is waiting for government approval of this permit and anticipates that this approval could be granted during the coming quarter.

Barrytown was settled in the 1870s as an alluvial gold mining centre, but become the focus of mineral sands in the mid 1960s. The Barrytown Flats Heavy Mineral Sands Project is located 28kms north of the port of Greymouth.

Barrytown project

The exploration area is around Barrytown and comprises a coastal lowland strip up to 1.5 km wide within a coastal embayment that stretches over 17 km from Razorback Point in the north to Seventeen Mile Bluff in the south (Figure 1).  Most of the area lies below an elevation of 20 m above sea level and is backed to the east by steep slopes along an old sea cliff. 

The Barrytown Flats contain a geologic sequence of Quaternary shorelines and local alluvial fan deposits that have, in places, been obscured by historic gold mining activity, particularly in the south.

The flats contain marine placer mineral concentrations of both ilmenite, gold and other associated heavy minerals in minor amounts. The ilmenite bearing sands are concentrated into a series of strand lines developed along the beachfront, and along sediment barriers from longshore drift and local stream deposits that have become stranded as the coastline prograded seaward; with lagoonal deposits formed on the eastern side. This has had the effect of elongate higher-grade zones on the former strand lines being surrounded by lower grade finer sands.