Mineral categories available for application under the ERA:
Category 1 - Metallic Minerals and Atomic Substances and any other mineral category that may be available within the defined area.
This ERA, located between Tullah and Cradle Mountain, has become available due to the total surrender of EL30/2008 by Bass Metals Ltd.
The ERA encompasses the Granite Tor Granite, a large fractionated S-type body which intrudes multiply deformed and metamorphosed Proterozoic rocks, mainly quartzite and phyllite, of the Tyennan Region. Regional gravity indicates that the granite is an exposed portion of a large east–west trending spine extending from the Heemskirk Batholith, beneath the Renison tin deposit, to the Upper Forth River.
The entire area is covered by airborne magnetics and radiometrics, flown with 200 m line spacing in 2002 as part of the Western Tasmanian Regional Minerals Program. This was followed up by four days fieldwork (Tasmanian Geological Survey Record 2003/10).
Bass Metals did no fieldwork in the two month period of their licence. A review of previous exploration, mainly by Alcoa and Shell (1978–1984), highlighted a zone of highly anomalous Sn (>100 ppm and locally >800 ppm) in soils NNW of the historic Bluff River workings, an adjoining NNW-trending graben transecting the Granite Tor Granite, and numerous magnetic anomalies around the granite. Although considered highly prospective for greisen vein array and skarn tin mineralisation, the area was relinquished due to a change in company focus.
Rugged terrain, low dense vegetation and difficulty of access have hindered exploration in this area, in which the only practical access is by helicopter.
Further information is available from:
