Taiton Resources Limited provided an updated on its activities at the Highway Project straddling the Stuart Highway, within the Gawler Craton of South Australia. Geological mapping commenced following recent receipt of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage clearance report. Field observations and airborne potassium radiometric data have delineated a 6 km arc of hydrothermally altered meta-sediments (quartzite).

Widespread altered quartzite is distinct due to ubiquitous green hues in outcrop and float, interpreted to be related to hydrothermal alteration minerals - chlorite and epidote. Within the arc of altered quartzite, an upper-crustal felsic intrusion (microgranite) is partly exposed at surface. The microgranite is inferred to be a member of the Hiltaba Suite, of the same age as the Roxby Downs Granite at Olympic Dam.

During mapping, veined and brecciated rocks were discovered in the vicinity of drillhole MER1, which was drilled in 1996. Textures in the sub-cropping rocks are considered analogous to the stockwork of quartz veins produced around the upper levels of mineralised porphyry plutons. At prospect scale, the microgranite is interpreted to have intruded into the upper crust, which provided conditions for fractionation of magma and boiling of volatiles at the contact with meta-sediments including quartzite.

The quartzite acted as a seal, until it ultimately fractured under hydraulic pressure. Subsequently erosion has partially exposed the microgranite and surrounding quartzite wall rocks to the present-day surface. Previous workers surveyed a single 1 km long line of induced polarisation at Merino Prospect and tested a chargeability anomaly with drill hole MER1 to a depth of 91m.

Assays returned 8m @ 0.39% Pb, 0.65% Zn from 34m, and 8m @ 0.11% Pb, 0.17% Zn and 0.02% Cu from 78m. Molybdenum and silver were not assayed. The chargeability anomaly was explained by the presence of pyrite veins in the drill core.

There has been no exploration at Merino Prospect since the drilling of MER1 up until the commencement of Taiton's field program. Testing of rocks with portable XRF during the current mapping program finds that veined and brecciated samples dug from the surface near drill hole MER1 identified the presence of Mo, Ag, Pb and Zn. Samples are currently being assayed with results expected in approximately 4 weeks.

Samples were collected along a 50m line Prior to commencing field activities, zircons were sampled from drill core stored at the South Australian Drill Core Library, which was previously drilled at locations now within Taiton's tenements. Geochemical and geochronological analyses of zircons suggest that much of the Highway Project area was tectonically active at the same time as the formation of significant mineral deposits including BHP's Olympic Dam and Oak Dam West, and Oz Mineral Limited's Carrapateena and Prominent Hill.